Enrico Rava - Avant garde Jazz from Italy is alive and very well.
Enrico Rava Quartet – Live In Torino – 1973 – Past Daily Downbeat
Enrico Rava Quartet – Live at RAI, Torino – January 1970 – RAI Radio – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
Enrico Rava in concert this week – recorded live at RAI’s Auditorium in Torino on January 1970. His group includes John Abercrombie on guitar – Bruce Johnson on bass and Chip White on drums.
Enrico Rava started on trombone, then changed to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis.
His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri’s Italian quintet in the mid-1960s; in the late 1960s he was a member of Steve Lacy’s group. In 1967, Enrico Rava moved to New York City and, one month later, became a member of the group Gas Mask, which had one album released on Tonsil Records in 1970.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked with John Abercrombie, Andrea Centazzo, Gil Evans, Richard Galliano, Joe Henderson, Joe Lovano, Pat Metheny, Michel Petrucciani, Cecil Taylor, and Miroslav Vitouš. He has also worked with Carla Bley, Lee Konitz, Jeanne Lee, Paul Motian, and Roswell Rudd. Chiefly an exponent of bebop jazz, Rava has also played in avant-garde jazz settings.
With trumpeter Paolo Fresu, Enrico Rava recorded four albums on the influence of Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, and Miles Davis. Also of note are his albums Rava, L’Opera Va’ and Carmen, which are his interpretations of operatic arias and overtures. In 2001, he founded a quintet with pianist Stefano Bollani and toured with Gato Barbieri and Aldo Romano. In the trio Europeans, he worked with Eberhard Weber and Swiss percussionist Reto Weber.
In June 2005, Rava was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music at the twentieth anniversary of jazz education at the Umbria Jazz Festival, in Perugia, Italy.
With an astonishing 49 albums to his credit as leader, Enrico Rava has carved his initials on Jazz throughout Europe. To get a better idea of where he was in 1970, here is an extended portion of a concert he performed in January of 1970.
Dig in.
And to dive in further . . .
