ENRICO RAVA & JOE LOVANO - Roma
ECM Records 774 2428
Enrico Rava (flugelhorn) Joe Lovano (tenor sax, tarogato) Giovanni Guidi (piano) Dezron Douglas (bass) Gerald Cleaver (drums)
Recorded November 10th 2018 in live performance at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Rome.
A meeting between these two giants of the international jazz scene has been long overdue but now, that they are both ECM alumni, it is most timely and appropriate. Lovano having just recently joined the label with his `Trio Tapestry` release earlier this year is the newbie whereas Rava is a long established `old boy` whose involvement dates back to 1975. As well as sharing a common heritage – the one an Italian native, the other Italian/American of Sicilian descent – they align musically in that they are both avowed eclectics whose styles of playing combine textural and improvisational daring with a veneration of the jazz tradition suffused with a strong streak of romanticism. Stylistically Rava is indebted to Miles and Chet with added Neapolitan flair combined with a willingness to move in and out of the box; similarly, Lovano’s sound comes out of the tenor establishment represented by Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, filtered through Coltrane with a nod in the direction of Ornette Coleman.
In this enterprise they are aided to great effect by Guidi (a frequent collaborator with Rava) a pianist who moves between rubato abstraction and florid classicism and Americans, Douglas and Cleaver who hold the improvisational dialogue together as well as contributing massively to the music’s inner workings and shifting momentum. Their intermeshing of accents and pulses are particularly effective in the opening number `Interiors`, a Rava composition which first saw light of day in his album `New York Days` where he was teamed with a quite different tenorist, Mark Turner. The piece has a nocturnal quality that puts me in mind of those Edward Hopper paintings with their depiction of ennui afflicted individuals acting out their lives in dimly lit interiors; Rava’s bleak, vibrato- less tone captures the atmosphere perfectly set against Lovano’s rather more querulous interrogation of the theme.
Rava contributes a further two compositions from his established repertoire and the recital concludes with a triptych conflation of Lovano’s `Drum Song` (in which he plays a Hungarian wind instrument), Coltrane’s `Spiritual` and a spiralling allusion to the ballad `Over the Rainbow` with Jarrett like extemporisation from the pianist. The centrepiece of the concert is, however, a robust version of Lovano’s blues, ‘Fort Worth`, taken at a rather faster lick than the original heard in his Blue Note release, `From The Soul` and he brings to a lustiness and presence that draws heavily upon his encyclopaedic grasp of the entire tenor legacy. I have to say that for me this virile assertiveness is preferable to the more tentative and introspective musings found in `Trio Tapestry` and I hope further collaborations will Rava will follow if this is what it takes to monster him into a more bullish mode.
Just a slight quibble about the recording: it doesn’t seem to be quite up to ECM’s usual standard of clinical clarity with Lovano sounding a bit off -mike on occasions. Let’s hope a studio recording with the same band will follow shortly but in the meantime this will do very nicely thank you.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
ECM Records 774 2428
Enrico Rava (flugelhorn) Joe Lovano (tenor sax, tarogato) Giovanni Guidi (piano) Dezron Douglas (bass) Gerald Cleaver (drums)
Recorded November 10th 2018 in live performance at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Rome.
A meeting between these two giants of the international jazz scene has been long overdue but now, that they are both ECM alumni, it is most timely and appropriate. Lovano having just recently joined the label with his `Trio Tapestry` release earlier this year is the newbie whereas Rava is a long established `old boy` whose involvement dates back to 1975. As well as sharing a common heritage – the one an Italian native, the other Italian/American of Sicilian descent – they align musically in that they are both avowed eclectics whose styles of playing combine textural and improvisational daring with a veneration of the jazz tradition suffused with a strong streak of romanticism. Stylistically Rava is indebted to Miles and Chet with added Neapolitan flair combined with a willingness to move in and out of the box; similarly, Lovano’s sound comes out of the tenor establishment represented by Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, filtered through Coltrane with a nod in the direction of Ornette Coleman.
In this enterprise they are aided to great effect by Guidi (a frequent collaborator with Rava) a pianist who moves between rubato abstraction and florid classicism and Americans, Douglas and Cleaver who hold the improvisational dialogue together as well as contributing massively to the music’s inner workings and shifting momentum. Their intermeshing of accents and pulses are particularly effective in the opening number `Interiors`, a Rava composition which first saw light of day in his album `New York Days` where he was teamed with a quite different tenorist, Mark Turner. The piece has a nocturnal quality that puts me in mind of those Edward Hopper paintings with their depiction of ennui afflicted individuals acting out their lives in dimly lit interiors; Rava’s bleak, vibrato- less tone captures the atmosphere perfectly set against Lovano’s rather more querulous interrogation of the theme.
Rava contributes a further two compositions from his established repertoire and the recital concludes with a triptych conflation of Lovano’s `Drum Song` (in which he plays a Hungarian wind instrument), Coltrane’s `Spiritual` and a spiralling allusion to the ballad `Over the Rainbow` with Jarrett like extemporisation from the pianist. The centrepiece of the concert is, however, a robust version of Lovano’s blues, ‘Fort Worth`, taken at a rather faster lick than the original heard in his Blue Note release, `From The Soul` and he brings to a lustiness and presence that draws heavily upon his encyclopaedic grasp of the entire tenor legacy. I have to say that for me this virile assertiveness is preferable to the more tentative and introspective musings found in `Trio Tapestry` and I hope further collaborations will Rava will follow if this is what it takes to monster him into a more bullish mode.
Just a slight quibble about the recording: it doesn’t seem to be quite up to ECM’s usual standard of clinical clarity with Lovano sounding a bit off -mike on occasions. Let’s hope a studio recording with the same band will follow shortly but in the meantime this will do very nicely thank you.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
