Rich Perry on "Wee"
Rich Perry at Smalls with Jimmy Macbride The first time I heard Rich Perry was on "Three Romances, Part 1: Choro Dan ç ado" from Maria Schneider's Concert in the Garden (2004), when he comes in echoing Donny McCaslin's descending clarinet line leading into his solo. His sound in those first couple of notes made me do a double-take: although Donny has a fine sound on clarinet, Rich's palm key D and other high register notes have this just unbelievably silky and warm-bodied sonority. Since then, I've had intermittent Rich Perry listening phases and I've come to start to think of Rich Perry's playing as sort of like dark chocolate—as in, I like it in moderation but start to feel numbed when I listen to him too much. To me, I find his tone, his style and diversity of articulation, elastic time feel, and periphrastic harmonic approach to be his most defining traits, playing-wise. Early on, I couldn't help but compare him to Joe Henderson whenever...