| LA WEEKLY
Vol. 20 No. 21 April 27-May 3, 1990 IVO Ivo Perelman (K2B2) Go. Go to the window and tell the crowd below, which has been clamoring so long for a Jewish tenor player from Brazil who imitates Albert Ayler, that its prayers have been answered. Where Ayler made up his own nursery rhymes and then blew them apart, however, Perelman works out on a selection of Brazilian children's songs in the company of some of the finest musicians producer Marty Krystall could dig up for him in L.A., including Airto (percussion), Flora Purim (voice), John Pattitucci (bass), Peter Erskine (drums), Don Preston (synth), Buell Neidlinger (bass) and Eliane Elias (piano). Perelman squeals! He pitch-bends! He plays bizarre lines outside tonal and chordal frameworks! All in the service of the Portuguese equivalent of "Frere Jacques"! How could you not like it? The backup band plays so crisply and joyously, it would be hard for Ivo to screw things up - though, to be honest, he's sometimes irritating anyway. At other moments he brings a damaged pathos to the proceedings that's touching, sounding less like Ayler than like Ornette Coleman or even Gato Barbieri. And on the final track, Milton Nascimento's "Ponta de Areia," he plays it perfectly straight and sincere, and you know what? It's beautiful. |
