IVO PERELMAN / GERRY HEMINGWAY – The Apple In The Dark

Leo

A somewhat surprising message by two famed improvisers, The Apple In The Dark is especially worthy of attention for the unexpected attending of a piano, played by Ivo Perelman besides sax. One might almost feel entitled to stating that the stray unresolved chords and quicksilver flurries coming from the Brazilian’s interior turbulence represent the most visible dimension of this brisk-sounding meeting. Still, an excessive focus on a single aspect would give no justice to Gerry Hemingway’s recasting of conventional jazz vernacular as far as drumming is concerned. All over the album, the constant presence of the tightened skin of his snare snapping out the coordinates of an erratic pulse right into the membranes is also a propellant for our limbs, forced to follow dramatic dissections of rhythmic propositions that seem to fight against the nature of a regular listening specimen. Either joining forces via the elegant antagonism of a reed, or opposing to the analgesic effects of ordinary progressions at the keyboard, Perelman confirms his artistic persona as a container of hundreds of impulses that – more often than not – are turned into an admirable marque of fanciful instantaneousness. The union with an equally skilled, rational-minded technical subversiveness as Hemingway’s begot a first-class release: the interplay couldn’t appear flaccid even on purpose, a manifest insusceptibility to static formulas transpiring throughout.