DUOLOGUES 3: CRYSTAL CLEAR / Nine improvised pieces / Ivo Perelman, t-sax; Ingrid Laubrock, t-sax/a-sax/s-sax / personally released CD, available for free streaming on Spotify and Apple Music
The Ivo Perelman Institute of Recorded Sound continues to roll along. I’ve lost count at this point, but I think this latest CD must be number 150 and counting. The Brooklyn-based saxist seems to turn out recordings as often as he does live gigs, and as I’ve pointed out, some of them appeal to me but many do not (and Ivo knows this…I’ve told him) because I simply cannot follow the train of musical thought in several of them, but when he turns out a gem I’m among the first to say so and surely one of his most enthusiastic supporters. He has told me that, to him, his recordings are like his children, each with a different personality, but as we all know, some kids are brilliant and some well-behaved while others, well…I’ll leave that your imagination.
Laubrock & Perelman
On this disc he is paired by German saxist Ingrid Laubrock, whose albums Blood Moon and Kasumi (the latter with Japanese-German pianist Aki Takase) I was very fond of), and she, too exhibits qualities of warmth and geniality on this session, so maybe it was a mutual connection of personalities and spirits. In any case, the nine improvised pieces given here constitute another chapter in the recent transformation of Perelman’s artistry from a wild and often untamed player to a more responsive partner of those with whom he records. Of course, even in some of those wild recordings he listened to what his musical partners were playing—again, it’s part of his personality—but in the last two years this tendency has jelled into something quite special, and in my opinion Duologues 3:Crystal Clear is a very special album.
One of the keys to this set’s success is that both artists tend to play for long stretches in their middle and lower ranges, emphasizing the warmth that both can draw from their instruments, but even when they ascend into their higher range they are thinking in terms of scalar improvisation which of course means a certain amount of musical progression. Yes, their music is completely free and flowing in terms of rhythm, but even here when one sets up a rhythmic pattern the other jumps right in and joins the other in surprisingly cohesive figures. Even Perelman’s occasional altissimo squeals—his trademark sound—often fit into what is going on around him much better than in the past. In short, these musical “children” of his may still have youthful and sometimes spontaneous energy but not rude behavior.
The second improvisation was, for me, one of the most interesting because on it Laubrock plays both soprano and tenor sax, and in the past the high-range antics of a soprano would surely have brought out the wildest squeals from Perelman, but here he is unusually sensitive to every nuance in Laubrock’s improvised lines and thus only gets more agitated when she does…and again, these two players are listening carefully to one another, In the third improvisation, their playing is so slow in tempo and so warm in sound texture that one might be hard-pressed for fans of either saxist to recognize their trademark sounds. Things get somewhat wild and hectic in improv four, but again there is some underlying structure to their playing. Neither artist is trying to blow the other out of the room.
Which is not to say that every track is well-behaved. In the fifth, both saxists sound as though they are having a nervous breakdown and nothing is coming out coherently, but at least they are having this breakdown simultaneously and are falling apart in the same general direction. Nonetheless, this was not a track that I particularly liked. On track seven, we get some chicken-clucking sounds, I know not from which saxist. I couldn’t comprehend this very much either. Well, you know how kids can be. Sometimes they’re well-behaved, and at other times they need some Ritalin to keep them under control, but eventually they get this out of their system and calm down. Although it builds up to some mutual screaming, the eighth track is generally excellent. The ninth is just mostly screaming.
So there’s a bit of unevenness on this album, but by and large I liked it. Customer reactions are subject to personal tastes.
—© 2024 Lynn René Bayley
Follow me on Facebook (as Monique Musique)
Check out the books on my blog…they’re worth reading, trust me!