Saxophonist Ivo Perelman – Performance at ShapeShifter Lab in New York City

Saxophonist Ivo Perelman is set to perform at New York City‘s ShapeShifter Lab on Wednesday, September 27 at 8:15pm in support of his six new releases, Octagon, Heptagon, Scalene, Philosopher’s Stone, Brussels, and Baltimore (available October 6 on Leo Records). Perelman will be joined by pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker and drummer Bobby Kapp.

In a career that now numbers more than 80 recordings under his own name, Ivo Perelman has established a variety of new benchmarks. He has developed an unsurpassed facility for integrating the tenor saxophone’s extra-high altissimo octaves with the instrument’s conventional range, bringing a new edge and polish to the concept of extended technique. To an extraordinary degree, he has engaged in the daredevil pursuit of utter spontaneity, in stupefying cogent recording sessions that start and end without written compositions or thematic elements, harmonic frameworks or preset tempos. He has assembled a world-class workshop of like-minded musicians on whom to draw for each new project, evincing a sorcerer’s touch for mixing these “ingredients” in novel ways and he has resorted to releasing several albums simultaneously, in order to keep pace with his runaway imagination and productivity.

About Ivo Perelman:

 Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Perelman was a classical guitar prodigy who sampled a series of other instruments before finally adopting the tenor saxophone. Attending the Berklee College of Music in 1981, he concentrated on the mainstream masters of the tenor sax, as opposed to such pioneering avant-gardists as Albert Ayler, Peter Brötzmann, and John Coltrane–all of whom would later be cited as precedents for Perelman’s own work. Perelman left Berklee in 1983 and moved to Los Angeles, where he discovered his penchant for post-structure improvisation. “I would go berserk, just playing my own thing,” he explains now. Emboldened by this approach, he began to research the free-jazz saxophonists who had come before him, and in the early 90s he moved to the more inviting artistic milieu of New York, where he lives to this day. 

Since 2010, he has been immersed in a “creative frenzy” that shows no sign of diminution, recording more than 30 albums in the last three years alone. His impassioned, unfettered, expressionist approach to the tenor sax – like the vivacious, hyperkinetic improvisations he creates – continues to captivate critics and fans even as it mystifies them. Perelman also maintains a separate career as a visual artist, producing a steady stream of abstract drawings and paintings that have attracted admirers worldwide. He now splits his time between New York, his home for more than 25 years, and São Paulo.

Ivo Perelman · Live in Brussels, Live in Baltimore, 

Scalene,  Heptagon, Octagon, Philosopher’s Stone

Leo Records ·  Release Date: October 6, 2017