The Egyptian Bennu bird was adapted by the Greeks as the Phoenix, which bathed in a well each dawn when the Greek sun-god Apollo would stop his chariot to listen to the bird’s song. These collective pieces of mythology arise in my mind each time a new album issues from the lips of this extraordinary artist and his collaborators, and here are three more from 2015, but the Phoenix has not burned and there are no ashes to scatter.
IVO PERELMAN/MATTHEW SHIPP/WHIT DICKEY – Butterfly Whispers
(Leo Records – CD LR740)
Ivo Perelman, Tenor Saxophone; Matthew Shipp, piano; Whit Dickey, drums
Recorded at Parkwest Studios, Brooklyn, NY, July 2015
Butterfly Whispers is an extraordinary performance that brings another new methodology to free improv. Drummer Whit Dickey joins with the duo and follows the shape of the saxophone while actually contributing to that shape. He is of course overtly familiar with Perelman although there would be no preconceptions about what music might evolve from this encounter – but the drummer knew what to do as each moment followed its predecessor. The addition of the drums changes the shape of the performances and this requires a change to their parsing. One might hope that this grammar is suggested by the track titles, but these were provided by the Brazilian poet Diva Galvao and were really intended for any listener to create their own narrative, no matter what it might be, from the atmosphere provided by those titles.
Part of my construed sense of narrative does not come from the titles of each piece, titles which I have ignored, but has simply been constructed from my impressions of the music. There is, I feel, a concentration of passion in the music which can be ascribed to Butterfly Whispers as a formidable piece, a masterpiece of elation.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
(Leo Records – CD LR740)
Ivo Perelman, Tenor Saxophone; Matthew Shipp, piano; Whit Dickey, drums
Recorded at Parkwest Studios, Brooklyn, NY, July 2015
Butterfly Whispers is an extraordinary performance that brings another new methodology to free improv. Drummer Whit Dickey joins with the duo and follows the shape of the saxophone while actually contributing to that shape. He is of course overtly familiar with Perelman although there would be no preconceptions about what music might evolve from this encounter – but the drummer knew what to do as each moment followed its predecessor. The addition of the drums changes the shape of the performances and this requires a change to their parsing. One might hope that this grammar is suggested by the track titles, but these were provided by the Brazilian poet Diva Galvao and were really intended for any listener to create their own narrative, no matter what it might be, from the atmosphere provided by those titles.
Part of my construed sense of narrative does not come from the titles of each piece, titles which I have ignored, but has simply been constructed from my impressions of the music. There is, I feel, a concentration of passion in the music which can be ascribed to Butterfly Whispers as a formidable piece, a masterpiece of elation.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
