Ivo Perelman/Aruán Ortiz/Lester St. Louis

Eli Wallace, Lester St. Louis, Nick Neuburg
Live at Scholes Street Studio
Gaucimusic No #

As a working New York musician, Lester St, Louis has crossed many musical boundaries as a cellist, bassist, sound designer and composer.  But he’s most frequently found as an improviser in bands with the likes of Dre A. Hočevar. Both singular meetings, Live features him in as part of a specially organized trio with pianist Eli Wallace and drummer Nick Neuburg. Meanwhile Prophecy is his first recording with tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman, who has had more partners than TV’s The Bachelor. While St. Louis had recorded with Wallace, he hadn’t met Neuburg, although the pianist and drummer had worked together. Besides Brazilian Perelman, the other trio includes Cuban pianist Aruán Ortiz, part of David Murray’s quartet, who is on two other of the saxophonist’s discs.

Cecil Taylor’s pianism has been described as playing 88 tuned drums and Live at Scholes’ single improvisation extends the simile in triplicate. Neuburg wallops all parts of his kit and sandpapers rasping pressure from wooden boxes placed atop his snare and tom. Already a percussive player Wallace’s keyboard rumbles and stops echo alongside inner piano string shakes and frequent hand slaps and pings on a nearby metal bowl collection. Meanwhile St. Louis uses his bow for lacerating strings below the bridge or col legno smacks, crackling slides and manoeuvres the cello’s spike to scour the ground.

Despite the number of items being banged, rasped and stroked this isn’t a noise band, but one which uses skill and taste to broaden expected timbres. With the cello often outputting a double bass-like pulse, the pianist comping and the drummer’s occasional march-time inflections,  the program contains a logical and linear evolution. This holds steady even as during the last few minutes the trio members substantiate the tracks’ exploratory status exposing every dissident tone they can find.

Dissonance is the basis for the other trio’s two extended improvisations. But rhythmic solidity and melodic hints are present enough to add variety to the program. Perelman’s widening moaning, altissimo squawks and speaking-in-tongues melisma and unstoppable reed bites may lacerate every exposition. Yet buried among these abrasive excesses in speedy and languid tempos are instances where he turn to near lyricism, projecting the equivalent of a simple lullaby or an interlude of moderated horizontal development.

A more flexible stylist than Wallace’s consistent reliance on sturdy pressure, Ortiz infrequently accelerates tempos or thickens the pace and that’s often in response to Perelman’s note bending multiphonics or bagpipe-chanter-like concentrated tone spattering. Instead hos moderated comping and pinpointed clinks often turn to linear cadences that especially on the lengthier “One” relate closely to unhyphenated modern jazz. Adding to that St. Louis’ cello thumps sometime stake on the connective role a bass would take in similar circumstances. String shrills and woody slaps are also heard but to a lesser extent than on the other set. Reed stutters, low-pitch string reverberations and piledriver piano chording refer back to the improvisations’ beginning in the set’s penultimate minutes. Pedal point piano accents and soundboard shakes, cello string stretched and out-of-nowhere bell ringing surround reed split tones that become thinner and thinner as they descend to dyspeptic stings as the coda.

Fitting seamlessly into neighboring but specific improvisations here demonstrates St. Louis’ appeal as an associate and why Perelman for one has already recorded another disc with him. For more info gaucimusic.com mahakalamusic.com

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Prophecy: 1. Two 2. One

Personnel: Prophecy: Ivo Perelman (tenor saxophone); Aruán Ortiz (piano) and Lester St. Louis (cello)

Track Listing: Live : 1. Live at Scholes Street Studio

Personnel: Live : Eli Wallace (piano); Lester St. Louis (cello) and Nick Neuburg (drums)