Enrico Rava
Encyclopedia
Enrico Rava is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
), is a prolific jazz trumpeter and arguably one of the best known Italian jazz musicians. He originally played trombone, changing to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
. His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri
Gato Barbieri
Leandro Barbieri , better known as Gato Barbieri , is an Argentinean jazz tenor saxophonist and composer who rose to fame during the free jazz movement in the 1960s and from his latin jazz recordings in the 1970s.-Biography:Born to a family of musicians, Barbieri began playing music...
's Italian quintet in the mid-1960s; in the late 1960s he was a member of Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....
's group. In 1967 Rava moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, and one month later became a member of the group Gas Mask, a group that had one LP on Tonsil Records in 1970. He has played with artists such as Carla Bley
Escalator over the Hill
Escalator over the Hill is mostly referred to as a jazz opera, but it was released as a "chronotransduction" with "words by Paul Haines, adaptation and music by Carla Bley, production and coordination by Michael Mantler", performed by the Jazz Composer's Orchestra.-History:Escalator over the Hill...
, Jeanne Lee
Jeanne Lee
Jeanne Lee was an American jazz singer, poet and composer. Best known for a wide range of vocal styles she mastered, Lee collaborated with numerous distinguished composers and performers which included Gunter Hampel, Ran Blake, Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, and many...
, Paul Motian
Paul Motian
Stephen Paul Motian was an American jazz drummer, percussionist and composer of Armenian extraction.He first came to prominence in the late 1950s in the piano trio of Bill Evans, and later led several groups...
, Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...
and Roswell Rudd
Roswell Rudd
Roswell Rudd is a Grammy Award-nominated American jazz trombonist and composer....
. Chiefly an exponent of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
jazz, Enrico Rava has also played successfully in avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
settings. His style may partly recall Kenny Wheeler
Kenny Wheeler
Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC is a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. since the 1950s....
's in its spareness and lightness of tone, albeit Rava's is harmonically simpler.
In the 1970s and 1980s he worked with Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...
, Michel Petrucciani
Michel Petrucciani
Michel Petrucciani was a French jazz pianist.-Biography:...
, John Abercrombie, Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than forty years Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note.-Early life:From a very large family with five sisters and nine...
, Richard Galliano
Richard Galliano
Richard Galliano is a French accordionist.-Biography:He was drawn to music at an early age, starting with the accordion at 4, influenced by his father Lucien, an accordionist originally from Italy, living in Nice.After a long and intense period of study Richard Galliano (born December 12, 1950,...
, Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš , is a Czech jazz bassist.-Biography:Born in Prague, he began the violin at age six, and started playing the piano at age ten, and bass at fourteen. As a young man in Europe, Vitouš was a competitive swimmer. One of his early music groups was the Junior Trio with his...
, Andrea Centazzo
Andrea Centazzo
Andrea Centazzo is an Italian-born American percussionist and composer of minimal music. He acquired U.S. citizenship in 2000 and lives in Los Angeles, California....
, Joe Lovano
Joe Lovano
Joseph Salvatore "Joe" Lovano is a post bop jazz saxophonist, alto clarinetist, flautist, and drummer. Since the late 1980s, Lovano has been one of the world's premiere tenor saxophone players, earning a Grammy award and several nods on Down Beat magazine's critics' and readers' polls...
, Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...
and Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
.
With trumpeter Paolo Fresu
Paolo Fresu
Paolo Fresu is a trumpet and flugelhorn jazz player, as well as an arranger of music, and music composer.-Career:Fresu was born in Berchidda, Sardinia. He picked up the trumpet at the age of 11, and played in the band Bernardo de Muro in his home town Berchidda...
, Rava recorded a series of four CDs on the influence of Bix Beiderbecke
Bix Beiderbecke
Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.With Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s...
, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
, and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
(Bix, Pop, Shades of Chet, Play Miles Davis). Also of note are his recordings Rava, L'Opera Va' and Carmen; his own interpretations of operatic arias and overtures. In 2001, he founded a new quintet with pianist Stefano Bollani
Stefano Bollani
Stefano Bollani is an Italian jazz pianist from Milan.He made his professional debut at fifteen and received his diploma in piano from the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence. He performs classical music, smooth jazz, avant-garde jazz, Brazilian jazz, and pop rock...
, and toured with Gato Barbieri and Aldo Romano
Aldo Romano
Aldo Romano is a jazz drummer. He also started a rock group in 1971.-Biography:He moved to France as a child and by the 1950s he was playing guitar and drums professionally in Paris, but his career gained notice when he started working with Don Cherry in 1963. He recorded with Steve Lacy and...
. In the trio Europeans he is working with German bass-player Eberhard Weber
Eberhard Weber
Eberhard Weber is a German double bassist and composer. As a bass player, Weber is known for his highly distinctive tone and phrasing...
and Swiss percussionist Reto Weber.
As leader
- Il Giro Del Giorno in 80 MondiIl Giro Del Giorno in 80 MondiIl Gor Del Giorno in 80 Mondi is an album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composert Enrico Rava recorded in 1972 and originally released in the International label and rereleased on the Italian Black Saint label in 1976.-Reception:...
(Black Saint, 1972)}} - The Pilgrim and the StarsThe Pilgrim and the StarsThe Pilgrim and the Stars is an album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composer Enrico Rava recorded in 1975 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:...
(ECM, 1975) - The PlotThe Plot (album)The Plot is an album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composer Enrico Rava recorded in 1976 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Michael G. Nastos awarded the album 4 stars noting the album's "Original ideas and compositions"....
(ECM, 1976) - Enrico Rava QuartetEnrico Rava QuartetEnrico Rava Quartet is an album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composer Enrico Rava recorded in 1978 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:...
(ECM, 1978)}}}}}}}}}} - VolverVolver (album)Volver is an album by the Enrico Rava/Dino Saluzzi Quinter recorded in 1987 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 3 stars stating "Rava's introverted yet inwardly passionate playing matches well with Saluzzi's modern tangos, and the results...
(ECM, 1986) with Dino SaluzziDino SaluzziTimoteo "Dino" Saluzzi is an Argentine musician.The son of popular carpero composer and instrumentalist Cayetano Saluzzi, Dino played the bandoneón since his childhood...
}}}} w/ Enrico PieranunziEnrico PieranunziEnrico Pieranunzi is an Italian jazz pianist. He fuses classical technique with jazz.He has performed with, among others, Frank Rosolino, Sal Nistico, Kenny Clarke, Johnny Griffin, Chet Baker, Joey Baron, Art Farmer, Jim Hall, Marc Johnson, Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, Bill Smith, Charlie Haden, Mads...
}}}}}} w/ Gianluigi TrovesiGianluigi Trovesithumb|200px|Gianluigi Trovesi in 2006.Gianluigi Trovesi is an Italian jazz saxophonist, clarinetist and composer.A native of Nembro near Bergamo in Lombardy, he studied harmony and counterpoint under Vittorio Fellegara. Since then he has been a major player in the Italian and European jazz scene....
}} w/ Richard GallianoRichard GallianoRichard Galliano is a French accordionist.-Biography:He was drawn to music at an early age, starting with the accordion at 4, influenced by his father Lucien, an accordionist originally from Italy, living in Nice.After a long and intense period of study Richard Galliano (born December 12, 1950,...
}}}}}}}}}}}}}} w/ Ran BlakeRan BlakeRan Blake is an American pianist and composer from Springfield, Massachusetts. In a career that spans five decades, Blake has created a unique niche in improvised music as an artist and educator...
}}}}}}}} - Easy LivingEasy Living (Enrico Rava album)Easy Living is an album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composer Enrico Rava recorded in 2003 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4½ stars stating "Easy Living is a relaxed, low-key affair that is nonetheless fully engaged and deceptive in its...
(ECM, 2003)}}}} w/ Stefano BollaniStefano BollaniStefano Bollani is an Italian jazz pianist from Milan.He made his professional debut at fifteen and received his diploma in piano from the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence. He performs classical music, smooth jazz, avant-garde jazz, Brazilian jazz, and pop rock... - TatiTati (album)Tati is an album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composer Enrico Rava recorded in 2004 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Michael G...
(ECM, 2004)}}}}}} - The Words and the DaysThe Words and the DaysThe Words and the Days is an album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composer Enrico Rava recorded in 2005 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:...
(ECM, 2007) - The Third ManThe Third Man (album)The Third Man is a live album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composer Enrico Rava and pianist Stefano Bollani recorded in Switzerland in 2006 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:...
(ECM, 2007)}} - New York DaysNew York DaysNew York Days is an album by Italian jazz trumpeter and composer Enrico Rava recorded in 2008 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:The Allmusic review awarded the album 3½ stars.-Track listing:# "Lulù" - 9:33...
(ECM, 2009) - Tribe (ECM, 2010)
As sideman
With Jimmy LyonsJimmy Lyons
Jimmy Lyons was an alto saxophone player. He is best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit.-Biography:...
- Give It UpGive It Up (Jimmy Lyons album)Give It Up is an album by American jazz saxophonist Jimmy Lyons recorded in 1985 for the Italian Black Saint label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4 stars stating "the ensemble work is frequently exciting; and the front line boasts three distinctive and rather...
(Black Saint, 1985)
With Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
- Little Red MoonLittle Red MoonLittle Red Moon is an album by the American jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp recorded in 1985 and released on the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:...
(Soul Note, 1985)
External links
- EnricoRava.com, official web site
- Discography
- Review of The Words and the Days at JazzChicago.net