For saxophonist extraordinaire Ivo Perelman’s latest twist in his never-ending plot, he explores give-and-take with virtuosic string players. Strings 1 and Strings 2, now out on Leo Records, isn’t the first time Perelman has placed his reed alongside a violin or viola, but he’s probably never dived so deeply into that type of arrangement. This is a quest to fully realize the juxtaposition of wind and vibrations and take it as far as it can go. Both releases are quartets with somewhat different combinations of players; Strings 1 covered here is an encounter with Mat Maneri (viola), Mark Feldman (violin) and Jason Hwang (violin).
A standard string quartet consists of two violins, a viola and a cello. Strings 1 hues to that standard, except that the cello is replaces by Perelman’s tenor sax. But listening to these recordings reveals that this isn’t quite the radical departure from the string quartet norm as that might suggest. Perelman, after all, took up the cello as his original instrument, and he has so deftly adapted the language of the cello to the horn, able to bend notes and enunciate sawing-like patterns in his intonation.
Moreover, his movement is in sync with Maneri, Feldman and Hwang on these totally improvised pieces; that kind of telepathy was remarkable when it was just Perelman and Maneri but adding Feldman and Hwang to the mix does nothing to push proceeding any closer to anarchy.
Some highlights occur throughout as on Track One when Feldman’s classically styled soliloquy invites halting responses from Hwang, and eventually, Maneri and Perelman discreetly enter the fray to change the two-way dynamic into a four-way one. On the second track, Perelman makes that ‘sawing’ motion as the string players respond in kind but does so at an unusually high register. For Tracks 4 and 5, we hear guitar-like plucking and Perelman uncannily adapts his saxophone approach to that. On the sixth track, Perelman applies heavier vibrato, which coaxes the string players to do the same, creating a profoundly sorrowful mood. The final track employs all sorts of neat tricks, including a siren-like pitch shift in unison.
Ever adaptive to his environment while maintaining his unique imprint, Ivo Perelman finds another steep challenge to take on and conquers it with a deep well of innovation and genuine fervor. Perhaps the only way a saxophone player can truly replace a cello player in a string quartet is if the saxophone player is also a cello player. That unique perspective certainly helped in making Strings 1 a successful endeavor.
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