3 cheers for Enrico Rava Quartet CDs

[Bol]

My recent visit to Italy motivated me to try some Italian jazz, and I picked up some Enrico Rava CDs. I am very much taken with them. These days I don't really listen to much straight ahead recordings made after mid-1960s. I find that I much prefer the older recordings to the newer ones when it comes to the standard bop/modal fare. But these Rava recordings are really first rate, and I am not quite sure why. I think a large part of it has to do with Rava's beautiful sound that is wistful but not overly sentimental. He doesn't bully you emotionally as some other recent American trumpeters do. In any case, I recommend the ones I have:

"Full of Life" (Cam) [pianoless quartet]

"La Dolce Vita" (Cam) [quartet w/ Bollani]

"Renaissance" (Venus) [quartet w/ Bollani]

There is also "Tati" (ECM), but I find that least congenial of the set I have. ECM sound is a put-off for me.

I wish that people like Wynton Marsalis would try to make recordings like these.

[The Rep]

I know it is a quintet but I found "Easy Living a great album. I must give it a play again.

[B. Goren.]

Everything Rava recorded with Bollani worth listening, IMHO.

[tonym]

  Bol said:

ECM sound is a put-off for me.

ECM sound? Care to elaborate? Not sure what this means.

[Bol]

  tonym said:

  Bol said:

ECM sound is a put-off for me.

ECM sound? Care to elaborate? Not sure what this means.

I mean the reverb-rich sound that makes it seem that the recording was done in a large stone church. Also the spare, slow sound that is meant to produce elegance, but all too often seems to border on New Age.

[Guest akanalog]

i think what you call the ECM sound affects trumpets among the worst of any instrument.....