Brace yourself!  Man of the Forest is Brazilian Ivo Perelman’s breathtaking vision of the music of fellow countryman and renowned composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Ivo has pulled off something truly amazing here.   Taking Villa-Lobos’ themes that are well-known and loved by aficionados of classical and Brazilian music and originally fusing them with several different strains of jazz, heavy doses of delirium-inducing percussion, and a saxophone style that is at once sophisticated and wild, Perelman has hit on an authentically new hybrid of innovation and tradition.  Recent Pulitzer Prize and Down Beat Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Gunther Schuller — co-producer of this record — calls Ivo’s music “an entire new school of jazz.”

Ivo reveals the same brilliant vision in his selection of personnel for this project.  The rich blend of Brazilian-born percussionists Nana Vasconcelos (Pat Metheny, Jan Garbarek), Guilherme Franco, Cyro Baptista and Duduka da Fonseca, sparked by the legendary American trap-set wizard Billy Hart, provides a highly combustible rhythmic fuel.  Joanne Brackeen and Mark Helias need no intro; in addition to being accomplished solo artists, both are members of New York City’s session elite.  A final, spicy touch is provided by Dom Salvador’s flavorful country accordion, indigenous to the mountains and savannas of Brazil. 

This is music at its best — intelligent, impassioned, high-voltage, fearless, and new.