Ivo Perelman with Sirius String Quartet: The Passion According to G.H. (2012)

GLENN ASTARITA,

Glenn Astarita

Senior Contributor since 1997

Longtime contributor to AAJ and Downbeat, Jazz Review, EjazzNews, Radio DirectX.

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Published: June 16, 2012

Ivo Perelman with Sirius String Quartet: The Passion According to G.H.

Track review of "Part 4"

At times, it seems difficult to fathom that Brazilian saxophone titan Ivo Perelman's collaboration with the Sirius String Quartet is totally improvised. And while improvisation is a principle component of the saxophonist's extensive and variegated discography, an unusually high synergistic force amid the artists' underlying tenacity offers a template for success. As the album comprises intense, avant-garde dialogues subsided by temperate or investigative flows, the string quartet often mimics Perelman's commanding, tremolo-tinged dialogues and brutish flurries.

"Part 4," opens with Perelman's burly attack, designed with wily phrasings and supple, soul-searching notes. He establishes a paradigm from the onset, yielding a framework that conveys pathos, lucid imagery and invokes notions of a puzzling series of circumstances. The strings section encircles, responds, and mirrors Perelman's refracting choruses in concert with a few softly woven subplots. It's a piece that poses streaming, contrapuntal passages and yearning notes, perhaps alluding to man's willful quest for the truth. Glowing imagery is a powerful component that prefaces the artists' spontaneous interactions and quick-witted evolutionary processes.

Personnel: Ivo Perelman: tenor saxophone. Sirius Quartet: Gregor Huebner: violin; Fung Chern Hwei: violin; Ron Lawrence: viola; Jeremy Harman: cello.

Record Label: Leo Records
Style: Modern Jazz