In the hands of people who are truly skilled or creative, the same ingredients can yield very different results. Just ask anyone who’s eaten Mexican food. Or Italian food. Or…well, you get the idea. It’s something I thought of after listening to The Purity Of Desire (CD), the new album by saxophonist Ivo Perelman, oud player Gordon Grdina, and percussionist Hamin Honari, during which I realized their music was similar but not the same as someone else whose music uses similar instrumentation.
Whether it’s together or with other people, saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp have always displayed an ability to play different forms of acoustic jazz, be it more traditionally structured, free form, or somewhere in between, and often on the same album. Which is what you get on Amalgam (CD, digital), their latest (but certainly not last) collaboration, and newest collection of duets.
Having heard plenty of jazz groups that consist of a piano player, a bassist, and a drummer, both with and without some combination of a saxophonist and / a trumpet player, I constantly find myself drawn to jazz that isn’t made by the usual suspects. It’s what drew me to the slow, moody clarinet of the Jimmy Giuffre 3’s 1961; what first appealed to me about the middle-eastern flavored jazz of Anour Brahem’s Thimar; and what now brings me to Deep Resonance (CD, digital), the new album by iconic jazz saxophonist Ivo Perelman and the jazz string threesome Arcado String Trio.
Having recorded as a duo (2015’s Live At Okuden), a trio with drummer Hamid Drake (2016’s Live At Okuden), and a trio with bassist William Parker (2017’s This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People), you’d expect the jazz twosome of pianist Matthew Shipp and clarinetist, saxophonist Mat Walerian to next record a quartet collection, perhaps with Drake and Parker.
But while their new album Sonic Fiction (CD, digital), was recorded by four people, it’s not the four you might expect. Credited to the Matthew Shipp Quartet Featuring Mat Walerian, Sonic Fiction features Michael Bisio on double bass and drummer Whit Dickey.
In talking to Shipp and Walerian, they discuss why this album is so unexpected, and what else they’re planning, as well as Shipp’s new solo piano collection Zero (CD, digital) and his three-disc boxed set with tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman, Oneness (CD).