CD Review: Enrico Rava Quintet - Tribe

Enrico Rava Quintet - Tribe
(ECM 276 6970. CD Review by Chris Parker)

Since returning to ECM in 2003, the great Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava has made a series of superb recordings with both international bands (2009's New York Days with Paul Motian et al. a prime example) and home-grown units. On this album, he leads the latter, comprising one of his most sympathetic front-line associates, trombonist Gianluca Petrella, and a suitably sensitive but strong rhythm section, pianist Giovanni Guidi, bassist Gabriele Evangelista and drummer Fabrizio Sferra.

The material is a mix of old ('F. Express', 'Amnesia', 'Garbage Can Blues' etc.) and new, and mines the familiar ECM mother lodes of rubato musing, freeish improvisation and deceptively gentle, ruminative 'time' pieces,but whatever the mode, Rava's band (two of whom, Guidi and Evangelista, are in their twenties) play with the robust delicacy laced with wit and elegance demanded by his graceful, insinuating themes.

Petrella and Rava, as might be expected by anyone who's heard the 2007 Rava recording, The Words and the Days, are a peerless combination, but it is Rava's ravishing lyricism, his pure, burnished tone infused with both warmth and a hint of human vulnerability, that makes this consistently absorbing, musicianly album so special.

Enrico Rava Quintet at ECM Records

Newsletter Prize Draw: Sounds and Silence DVD from ECM

Newsletter subscribers this week have a special prize draw. "Sounds and Silence." A new (UK release is on Monday August 29th) DVD with an accompanying CD of music from the film.

ECM's press release tells the story of what Austrian Radio called :  “The magic of ECM, in a rich, exciting, musical road movie.”

Over a period of five years, Swiss filmmakers Norbert Wiedmer and Peter Guyer followed producer Manfred Eicher and the artists of ECM around the world. In footage from Estonia, Tunisia, Germany, France, Denmark, Greece, Argentina and elsewhere, their documentary movie Sounds and Silence has captured aspects of the music-making process at ECM, and provided unique glimpses of players and composers at work.

Amongst the artists included are Arvo Pärt, Eleni Karaindrou, Dino Saluzzi and Anja Lechner, Anouar Brahem, Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Coscia, Marilyn Mazur, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, Kim Kashkashian, Jan Garbarek and others.

The film received its premiere at Locarno’s Piazza Grande in front of an audience of 7,000 spectators in August 2009 and has since gone on to tour the world’s festivals. Sounds and Silence won joint first prize at the  Berner Film Prize 2009, was nominated for the Schweizer Film Prize, and has collected some ecstatic reviews.

Now the film is released to the public for home viewing in DVD and Blu-ray. ECM has been quietly building an outstanding catalogue of DVDs, but Sounds and Silence is the first to be released also in Blu-ray format, a decision already loudly approved on the internet fan forums. Bonus material includes scenes from Manu Katché’s recording of Playground in New York.

A copy is available to the winning newsletter subscriber. Email me to put your name in the hat for it.

http://www.ecmrecords.com/