Enrico Rava New Quartet

Enrico Rava, flugelhorn
Francesco Diodati, guitar
Gabriele Evangelista, double bass
Enrico Morello, drums


“I don't choose musicians for the instrument they play: I choose them for their head”. Enrico Rava has no doubts when he talks about his quartet and the elective affinities that led the trumpeter to put together this heterogeneous Quartet together with Gabriele Evangelista on double bass, Francesco Diodati on guitar and Enrico Morello on drums. And you know: in bands, as in love, we choose each other and so it was also for this line-up, a meeting of different personalities who came together thanks to the human and musical charisma of Enrico Rava.

Fundamental was Siena Jazz and its seminars, forge of talents and crossroads of musical worlds, where four years ago the trumpet player got to know and appreciate the qualities of Francesco Diodati and Enrico Morello. With Gabriele Evangelista, however, the artistic collaboration began as early as 2010, when the double bass player joined Rava's "Tribe" quintet, a group with which he has performed numerous concerts in Italy and abroad. After appreciating the talents of Francesco Diodati - guitarist with a personal language and an original approach to melody - and Enrico Morello - drummer with refined drumming and a marked sensitivity in the choice of dynamics - Enrico Rava decides, in 2014, to give life to his Quartet, sensing the potential that this meeting would generate.

"The truth is that the three of them work very well together - says Rava - and at this is because there is not only a deep trust, but also the ability to listen to each other. Two elements that are the basis of the functioning of a group".

In 2015 the publication of "Wild Dance" for ECM, an album in which the Quartet highlights an interplay that benefits from the freshness of the musicians involved and the experience of Rava, going well beyond the simple cross-generational approach and creating songs that tell something new.


ENRICO RAVA

This hugely popular trumpet player (born in Trieste, Italy in 1939) almost single-handedly brought Italian jazz to international attention. He began playing Dixieland trombone in Turin, but after hearing Miles Davis, switched instruments and embraced the modern style. Other key meetings were with Gato Barbieri, with whom he recorded movie soundtracks in 1962, and Chet Baker. He began to play with Steve Lacy; he also teamed up with South African expatriates Louis Moholo and John Dyani and recorded The Forest and the Zoo (ESP) live in Argentina. In 1967, he moved to New York, playing with Roswell Rudd, Marion Brown, Rashied Ali, Cecil Taylor, and Charlie Haden. In a brief return to Europe, Rava recorded with Lee Konitz (Stereokonitz, RCA) and Manfred Schoof (European Echoes, FMP). From 1969 to 1976, he was back in New York, recording Escalator Over the Hill with Carla Bley's Jazz Composers' Orchestra. After his first album as a leader, Il Giro del Giorno in 80 Mondi (Black Saint), he began to lead his own pianoless quartets and quintets. His recorded output numbers 100 records, 30 as a leader.
ECM has reissued some of his essential recordings of the '70s, like The Pilgrim and the Stars, The Plot, and Enrico Rava Quartet, while Soul Note and Label Bleu published CDs by his innovative Electric Five (in reality a sextet, as he always excludes himself from the count), which includes two electric guitars. With keyboard master Franco D'Andrea and trumpeter Paolo Fresu, Rava recorded Bix and Pop (Philology) and Shades of Chet, tributes to Bix Beiderbecke and Armstrong, and to Chet Baker, respectively. Also of note are Rava, l'Opera Va and Carmen, gorgeous readings of opera arias. In 2001, he created a new quintet with young talents Gianluca Petrella, Stefano Bollani, Rosario Bonaccorso, and Roberto Gatto, and toured with old friends Roswell Rudd and Gato Barbieri, releasing Easy Living with them in 2004 on ECM. Three years later, after Bollani, who had struck out as a solo player, was replaced by Andrea Pozza, The Words and the Days came out. In 2007, Rava and pianist Stefano Bollani released The Third Man on ECM. Rava followed the released in 2009 with New York Days, a collection of moody originals with a film noir tinge, backed by a band that included Bollani, tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Paul Motian. Rava broke in a new all-Italian quintet for Tribe, which was issued by ECM in the fall of 2011. Its members included trombonist Gianluca Petrella, pianist Giovanni Guidi, bassist Gabriele Evangelista, and drummer Fabrizio Sferra. Guitarist Giacomo Ancillotto also guested on the set, expanding the lineup on various selections. Rava made a wide left turn for 2012's On the Dance Floor. Amazingly, the trumpeter only became aware of pop singer Michael Jackson's music after his death, and he became obsessed with it. The album, his tribute to what he considers the late singer's contribution to 20th century music, was recorded with Parco della Musica Jazz Lab at the Rome Auditorium; it is entirely comprised of Jackson's material.
On 2015 he recorded a new cd for ECM Label, Wild Dance, with his New 4et with Francesco Diodati, Gabriele Evangelista and Enrico Morello. A documentary film on his life and career was presented on june 12th at Biografilm Festival of Bologna.


FRANCESCO DIODATI

Francesco Diodati is one of the young jazz musicians in rapid rise on the Italian scene and beyond. The clarity of ideas and the willingness to share his poetics with musicians of the same generation are his salient features. Diodati's contribution is part of the contemporary jazz current in which the sense of history coexists with openness to a vast universe of sound. The skilful use of electronic effects that is grafted onto his technical and musical mastery of the electric and acoustic guitar reflects a conception of the soundscape that expands the physical boundaries of the six strings.


GABRIELE EVANGELISTA

Gabriele Evangelista, considered one of the most creative and eclectic Italian double bass players, is the last of the talents endorsed by Rava. Discovered at the jazz seminars in Siena, he is evolving at supersonic speed and is in great demand for his extraordinary skills (precision combined with unbridled creativity and great interplay) by many Italian musicians.


ENRICO MORELLO

Enrico Morello is a drummer with a refined drumming, who can count on an academic preparation and a series of international experiences rare for many of his peers, and who cultivates the study of his instrument with passion and professionalism. He is a curious musician and respectful of tradition, with an amazing swing and great sensitivity in the choice of dynamics, who looks to the future, constantly engaged in a personal research that starts from jazz but explores the whole musical universe.