Perelman / Levin / Zetterberg

Soulstorm

Label: Clean Feed Country: Portugal

"Soulstorm is a remarkable joint venture between gifted saxophonist Ivo Perelman, and two of the most distinguished string players around, cellist Daniel Levin and double bassist Torbjorn Zetterberg. Taking its title from a book by Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, Soulstorm confirms the universality of jazz as a language for all nations in the global age. This is a transnational trio in every aspect of the music heard in this double album - the musicians converse fluently with one another, but each with his own accent and dialect.

Like Charles Gayle before him, Perelman reinterprets for today the same concept that John Coltrane and Albert Ayler had for the tenor saxophone: to employ this reed instrument as the ideal vehicle for the most visceral of expressions, even when sublimated by deeply spiritual states. Perelman's intrinsic connection to Abstract Expressionism can be felt in his music, and evidenced visually also through his work as a painter (his other artistic vocation), though this Brazilian in New York adds hot and bright tropical colors to the traditional palette of color and sound.

This recording expands the direction that Perelman has established on prior recordings: to adopt the aesthetic purposes of The New Thing, while simultaneously adding his own unique voice to the continuum of the tradition to which he belongs. The "scream" may be the most immediately obvious characteristic of Perelman's personal style, but similarly to Gayle, Coltrane and Ayler, this cry is not to be construed as a manifestation of rage. In his music, lyricism obtains a grainy texture and an immediacy that the 19th century Romantics couldn't have imagined possible. The sounds emanate from the deepest recesses of both soul and body, and in that sense they reflect an enormous humanity. Evocations of bossa nova and choro emerge from Perelman's interactions with Levin and Zetterberg, adding a special flavor to this free-flowing and open chamber jazz. All of this comes together to make Soulstorm a unique document of rarefied expression; it's the kind of music we all were waiting for."-Clean Feed