Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp : EMBRACE OF THE SOULS Essay by Jean - Michel Van Schouwburg translated by Andrew Castillo

Ivo Perelman – Matthew Shipp Special Edition Box
• CD - Procedural Language - Tenor saxophone & Piano duo of Perelman – Shipp
• Blu-ray - Live in Sao-Paulo at SESC - directed by Jodele Larcher
• Book - Embrace of the Souls - Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg. Translated by Andrew Castillo.
• Limited Edition of 360 issued by Hannes Selig’s SMP Records https://smprecords.bandcamp.com/album/special-edition-box

For decades, Brazilian tenor saxophone great Ivo Perelman and Delaware-born piano visionary Matthew Shipp have shared an intimate and deep dialogue dedicated to free improvisation and instant composition. Their acclaimed duet albums of recent years reveal a subtle, yet substantial extension of their intuitive interactions, their brand of musical telepathy: Corpo, Callas, Complementary Colors, Live in Brussels, Saturn, Oneness (a triple CD), Efflorescence (4 CDs) and Amalgam total eighteen compact discs. There are no themes, nor compositions; the pair create their duo music spontaneously, listening to each other intensely in the moment, avoiding “solos” and “accompaniment.” Included in this box set, Procedural Language crowns their magnificent recorded output with much fire, sensitivity, and lyrical abandon.

Perelman blows his singular overtones on tenor sax, often in the altissimo range, practically singing in a style equally inspired by Brazilian saudade and legendary players like Ayler, Coltrane, Griffin, Webster and Getz. On piano, Shipp operates at the confluence of Jazz, African-American music, Western Classical and Avant-Garde, with poise, energy and brilliance. His virtuosic pianism shifts as necessary to complement and challenge his colleague’s voice, forming an ephemeral and ever-fascinating equilibrium. Their duo work is enhanced by an impressive series of recordings and concerts with like-minded improvisers - including bass players William Parker & Mike Bisio, drummers Gerald Cleaver, Whit Dickey and Bobby Kapp, violist Mat Maneri, and guitarist Joe Morris – that form a compelling body of work.

The full-length essay Embrace of the Souls delivers an inside view to the creative dialogue between Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp, highlighting the pair’s shared experiences and tracing the various elements at work in their joint musical practice. More than a technical breakdown, it accentuates their human interaction, and situates the duo within the cultural and historical context of the evolution of (free) jazz. The author, J-M Van Schouwburg, is a noted free-improvising singer and critic of improvised music. Completing the audio-visual experience of the Special Edition Box set is Live in Sao-Paulo at SESC, a remarkable concert film captured by director Jodele Larcher and his consummate team.

One excerpt of the essay :

But how embarrassing it would be to proclaim which of these recordings is the most essential. Unlike the trio albums - The Foreign Legion with Gerald Cleaver, Butterfly Whispers with Whit Dickey, The Gift with Michael Bisio – Shipp provides the cadences and rhythms in the duo setting, in a unique way that, to my knowledge, has no equivalent in a group with a drummer and/or bassist. In a duo, Matthew Shipp creates imposing foundations, interweaving complex metrics, masterfully alternating and interlocking, embracing themes and intervals, accents and pulsations. He distances himself from the jazz pianist, whose accompaniment/solo oscillation, he rejects. His play is one with that of his comrade, while standing apart emotionally and effectually. Freedom, individual independence, is as important as close collusion.

I intimated above that the music of the duo differs depending on whether it’s played in the studio or in concert. Studio albums contain shorter tracks, and often have more clearly defined structures and atmospheres. A succession of numbered parts (1, 2, 3, etc.) or titles that poetically invoke colors or color combinations (Contemporary Colors) help set the parameters.

The live albums reveal an illuminated chain of sequences, some well formed, some more mysterious, which are improvised on the spot, and change directions in a matter of nanoseconds. They attest to a musical telepathy, on full display on Live in Nuremberg, the duo’s latest concert CD, recently released on SMP. It contains strong, superbly expressive moments, the pair almost raging in the face of the Germanic audience that surround them in a semi-circle. However, this does not necessarily characterize their live shows. In fact, the single CD Live in Nuremberg and the double disc Live in Brussels are hardly similar. Even within the instinctively sequenced set list of the latter, there is a clear separation of modes, though the end of the first set does seem to segue into the beginning of the second set.

The two pieces that make up the first set at L’Archiduc are of a pair, ethereal twenty-minute explorations. The long second set, an extraordinary journey, embarks with an ample stride, a clear pulse upon which the saxophonist flows and pivots, the piano overlaying sequences of riffs punctuated with odd rhythms, sketching motifs that are haunted, chained. In real time, the duettists investigate the ruptures in the beat, Perelman playing the introverted partner. Slowly, methodically, they build to a crescendo that begins to take its demonic shape, Shipp striking the keyboard with all the force of his shoulders and forearms, vibrating the strings like a typhoon would a skiff at sea. Frenzied, hallucinatory, Perelman pushes the cry of his reed to its upper-limit, unleashing a dense, ultra-powerful altissimo. Not a cry or a howl, but a fiery, heartbreaking song, an extraordinary musical vibration. It clearly forms a melodic element, an eruption of the harmonic substrata that unearths unspeakable emotions.

The more direct, assertive energy of the 55-minute Nuremberg set can be compared to that of the second set at L’Archiduc. The resemblance between these two long pieces, in construction and integral elements, is so much that it seems planned, thought out: the trajectory of the sequences, the vacillation between intensity and repose, the crescendos of energy, the raw melodic material, the feeling, the implied atmospheres. Still, somehow, there is not a single moment where the music played in Nuremberg can be mistaken for that played in Brussels. On both, but even more so on the former, a close listen reveals a treasure of musical leaps forward, intimated desires, hidden suggestions. For this reason, Live in Nuremberg is my live album trump card, just as Callas is the most balanced collection of studio recordings, the one that best captures the pair’s endlessly fascinating qualities in that context.

But alas, shocked buyer, there is nothing to fear; all their albums are worthwhile, these as much as the others. And we have an embarrassment of choices. At first glance, the music may sound similar, even repeated from one CD to another. Then, suddenly, inevitably, we are overwhelmed by the Afro-Latin generosity of the two players, by their fierce desire to create once again, to produce something new.

Let’s listen, shall we?

https://ivoperelman.bandcamp.com/album/amalgam

https://taoforms.bandcamp.com/album/garden-of-jewels

https://smprecords.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-nuremberg