Ivo Perelman / Matthew Shipp: Magical Incantation

If the purest form of communication is music then Magical Incantation—the latest free-form essay to flow from the spirits of free jazz titans sax master Ivo Perelman and piano master Matthew Shipp—could very well be the very definition.

No strangers to each other (the two have released nineteen duet recordings, not to mention their prolificacy within smaller and larger ensembles) Perelman and Shipp continue their lifelong conversation with eight shared intimacies which get to the heart of human connection.

In good times and bad, these two good men and creators know that communication is essential to the whole endeavor. So "Enlightenment" clears the cobwebs as Perelman wails for us all and Shipp modulates and rhapsodizes. "Sacred Values" and "Incantation" make bold use of Shipp's masterful harmonic intercessions and dancing thunder. "Prayer,"Magical Incantation's opening volley, finds the duo in laid-back ballad mode. "Rituals" revels in its reflexive angularity.

As on such watermark recordings as 2022's Fruition (ESP Disk), Live In Nuremberg (SMP, 2019), and the double disc tribute to Maria Callus Callus (Leo Records, 2015), the duo recall and recast, prodding and cajoling all understood concepts while striding fearlessly across the active unknown. To that end "Vibrational Essence" shapes like a slow tide, its rolling edges defying, defining, the very notion that any one human voice has it above all others. "Magical Incantation" broods then releases as each searches far into himself, thus realizing us all in the end.

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