American, New York-based, prolific tenor sax player Ivo Perelman’s ongoing series of free improvised duo meetings, some titled as Duologues, pair him with different, idiosyncratic improvisers. Obviously, every meeting demands deep listening, sharp and spontaneous instincts, and adaptation to different improvisation tactics and distinct sonic palettes. Each meeting is a sonic lab of its own kind, performed only in the studio’s isolated space, with no audience and no predetermined structure, yet with a clear attempt to achieve coherence and unique sonic architectures.
Perelman notes that he played the guitar since he was a young boy, but could not find his 
personal voice on this instrument, often, as he sees it, “oblivious to individuality”, unlike with the tenor sax. Trifecta documents Perelman with three different master guitarists, each with his own distinct voice, and together they offer a panoramic view of contemporary, free improvised guitar.
The five pieces with Marc Ribot were recorded at Park West Studios in January 2022. It documents the first-ever recording session of these two improvisers. They often sketch what sound like early drafts of soulful, bluesy songs, with Ribot cleverly ornamenting Perelman’s emotional, melodic musings with economic, reserved playing, suggesting a seductive, funky pulse. They settle on this kind of playful ping-pong of delicate, melodic ideas, even when Ribot introduces eccentric, slide sounds, and distortion to the conversational, dance-like mode of improvised conversations. Only the third and the last pieces explore faster, more volatile, fierce modes of dialogue, but soon Perelman steers these pieces into playful, soulful, still intense conversations.
The seven pieces with Sharp were recorded at the same studio in July 2024. This is their second, free improvised meeting, following Artificial Intelligence (Mahakala Music, 2023). Sharp’s rich lexicon of unconventional guitar palette contrasts Perelman’s gentle, melodic ideas, with complex, thorny guitar sound and electronic effects, always pushing toward uncharted, experimental, and microtonal timbral resonances. Sharp’s manipulated and processed guitar sound triggers Perelamn to explore futurist, urgent bird calls, otherworldly folk theme, or a restless and dense, enigmatic, resonant-percussive collision. Sharp manages to show Perelman in his most physical and urgent form, without giving up his melodic sensibility. The last piece offers a peaceful conclusion with Sharp’s sparse, bluesy guitar and Perelman’s emotional, lyrical sax.
Perelman’s first free improvised meeting with Joe Morris was documented five years ago in Elliptic Time (Mahakala Music, 2022), but they have collaborated in various formats since the late 1990s. The five extended pieces r with Morris were recorded a month earlier than the session with Sharp, and they enjoy their already established, deep camaraderie. These pieces suggest intuitive, eloquent, and stimulating give-and-take conversations, based on immediate yet intricate, profound melodic sensibility, and attention to form. These pieces sound as if they immediately gravitate into their own inner logic and loose, fluid architectures, enjoying an endless well of ideas, but not attaching themselves to any of them.
Core of Existence with double bass master Damon Smith is one of the most demanding ones in the Duologue series. Smith is well-versed in the history of free improvised music schools on both sides of the history, and can suggest a detailed cartography of every seminal album from all free jazz and free improvisation schools. His intrepid, exploratory approach and his array of extended bowing and percussive techniques rely on complete surrender to the art of the moment, in its most physical form. In this meeting, Perelman cannot rely on his more emotional, immediate, song-like themes as the basis for conversational improvisations and is forced into fierce, confrontational interplay. Therefore, only on the fourth improvisation, Perelman and Zone begin to establish a compatible equilibrium that can contain Perelman’s urgent, melodic musings with Smith’s restless need to expand the timbral possibilities of such intimate dialogue. The focus of this meeting is on this kind of raw, colliding dynamics. The highly captivating process of constantly exploring and reshaping the music transforms the dialogue into a form. The last, 17-minute tenth improvisation demonstrates that Perelman and Smith found their own dynamics, melodic but not too respectful, powerful and intense but also openly emotional, addressing the inquisitive mind and the compassionate soul.
Ivo Perelman/Marc Ribot/Elliott Sharp / Joe Morris – Trifecta (Mahakala Music, 2026)
Ivo Perelman/Damon Smith – Duologue: Core of Existence (Squid Note, 2026)
