Ivo Perelman With Strings

Links & more for April 18, 2025

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in the process of uploading the Leo Records catalog to Bandcamp, and the current phase of that operation involves grappling with the nearly 70 albums released by Brazilian saxophonist Ivo Perelman between 1997 and 2017.

I’ve also been thinking and writing, these past few weeks, about the not-really-a-subgenre known as “chamber jazz”. (Read my thoughts at Shfl.) This style takes all kinds of forms, from drumless ensembles to soloists accompanied by strings to through-composed pieces for standard jazz instrumentation. It’s one of those “you know it when you hear it” things, a category of music that has room for Ahmad Jamal and Cecil Taylor, Bill Frisell and Mary Halvorson, Benny Goodman and Jimmy Giuffre... and yes, Ivo Perelman.

In this week’s newsletter, I’m going to share with you my thoughts on two Perelman albums that feature him playing with string quartets: The Alexander Suite, recorded with the C.T. String Quartet, and The Passion According To G.H., with the Sirius Quartet.

The Alexander Suite is an eight-part album, with the tracks labeled simply as “Part 1” through “Part 8”. It was recorded in May 1998 at Hillside Sound Studio in Englewood, NJ. The C.T. String Quartet, named in honor of Cecil Taylor, was founded by bassist Dominic Duval, who played with the pianist for many years, and featured violinist Jason Kao Hwang, violist Ron Lawrence, and cellist Tomas Ulrich. In a 1999 interview, Duval explained his philosophy on improvisation:

“Improvisation; there’s no such thing. Why? Because you can’t play something you don’t know. You can only restate something that you’ve learned, somewhere. You’ve had to have heard it; you’ve had to have absorbed it somewhere in your life, in your musical past. We’re like sponges. Whatever we listen to we store, especially musicians who really have the strongest points of memory, the strongest points of influences and passions; they pick up things and they keep them with them. So things we’ve heard ten years ago, twenty years ago, ten minutes ago, they’re all part of the ongoing, working vocabulary that we use.

“Now, improvisation, the word alone means to make something out of nothing, or to make do with something. To make do with what? Since I’m starting with nothing, there’s nothing to make do with. I cannot play anything that I don’t know. I must approach music with the knowledge that I have, which is harmonic, dynamic, melodic, and rhythmic; all those things come into play. It’s still not improvisation; it’s just organizing things like Cecil does, and other musicians whom I really respect. They organize things to make a piece of music out of things that they’ve worked on, or that they’ve thought about doing, and having an opportunity without anyone interfering. They will create this in real time.”

I emailed Jason Kao Hwang for his memories of the ensemble and the session. He said, “Dominic Duval was the leader of the string quartet. We played with two saxophonists, Ivo and also with Joe McPhee. I’m not sure about the chronology, but we played with Joe at the Sons D’Hiver festival in Paris.

“I believe Dom was playing with Cecil Taylor during that period, which is why he called us the C.T. String Quartet. The playing was always completely free. No score.

“We never performed with Ivo, just the recording. Probably the session was no longer than three hours. I’m pretty sure Ivo chose the takes.

“Hillside Sound was a studio built in an old renovated house on a hill in Englewood. I think it was owned by Tony Bennett’s son. He later built a bigger studio, also in Englewood.”

Regardless of the fact that the music on The Alexander Suite was created in real time, without even much discussion before the red “Record” button was pressed, it has an extraordinary vitality. Perelman plays with great force, almost sounding like David S. Ware at times, and the string players interact in various combinations. They swing freely when that’s what seems to be called for, they create searing two- and three-way exchanges when that’s the right move, and the whole 55-minute disc becomes a single cohesive musical journey.

The Passion According To G.H. was one of a string of albums Perelman made that were inspired by the writing of Clarice Lispector. It was recorded in December 2011 at Park West Studios in Brooklyn and featured the Sirius Quartet: violinists Gregor Huebner and Fung Chern Hwei, violist Ron Lawrence again, and cellist Jeremy Harman.

Although it, too, consists of a series of untitled tracks (“Part 1” through “Part 6”), it’s a very different album from The Alexander Suite. The string players offer almost Middle Eastern harmonies at times, and pluck the strings percussively at other times; Perelman engages in relentless repetition, making you wonder if he’s practicing circular breathing; ultimately, the music begins to swirl around you like a leaf storm, underpinned by low rumbles and rattles from the cello.

(Side note: Perelman and the Sirius Quartet apparently recorded another album’s worth of material in 2014; it’s mentioned in the liner notes to the album A Violent Dose Of Anything, but it’s never been released.)

The music on The Alexander Suite and The Passion According To G.H. is astonishingly intimate; at times, the interaction between the players feels like something we shouldn’t be listening in on. It’s not “beautiful” in the conventional sense, but it has such a volcanic energy that you can’t turn away, even as it threatens to overpower you. Buy these records, and many more, on Bandcamp now.

That’s it for this week, unless you’re a paying subscriber. Come back on Tuesday, when we’ll be discussing five new jazz records worth your time and money, or venture beyond the paywall, where you’ll find a tribute to trumpeter Herb Robertson by fellow brass master Nate Wooley; a discussion of three novels by an author who might be the female Michel Houellebecq; a review of a book about how the media warps our perception of the police; and a very interesting interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which turned 100 this month. Thanks as always for reading, whether you’re a paying subscriber or not.