Ivo Perelman: Synesthesia

Like past gatherings of tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman, pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker, and drummer Bobby Kapp, inscribed to memory on the highly touted  Ineffable Joy (ESP, 2019) and Heptagon (Leo Records, 2017), Synesthesia erupts into consciousness with a punch and flurry. 

Feverish by design, "First Color Heard" stays true to its title and to the heart of each participant. Rambling, rumbling, reaching for the stars, Perelman exhorts his fellow travelers, and "First Color Heard" fills the airspace with a noise beyond beauty, ending its nine minutes in Shipp's restful hands. "Phosphene," an impression of light that occurs without light entering the eye, resulting from excitation of neurons in the visual system, breaks the mold and off the quartet goes in search of insight and wisdom. Perelman is at his John Coltrane moment—searing, soaring, praying for a common good. Kapp prowls the mission drift. Shipp insists. Parker holds back, explodes. "Phosphene" is a reprise. 13 minutes without news of war, corruption, or failing democracies. 

So too "Blue Taste." An old-school free jazzer, "Blue Taste" warps and warps as it wraps its unruly self around the collective brainstem, then releases a bolt of dopamine into the system that is not hard to take and, if need be, on a daily basis. Also in that immediate category of daily doses, the wandering moodiness of "Afterglow" and the rocket punch of  "One Sense" make Synesthesia a complete work in and of itself.