2019 Highlight: Enrico Rava, Joe Lovano, Roma, ECM

Enrico Rava turned 80 back in the summer. Roma was recorded at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome last November.

Lovano this year in his own projects has been touring with Trio Tapestry his avant band that he spearheads with Marilyn Crispell and Carmen Castaldi as fellow countercultural ambassadors.

Together on Roma Enrico and Joe create a melancholic, philosophical sound: the Italian trumpet master adventurous and brave his beautiful tone whether on trumpet or flugel undiminished in no significant way by the ravages of living.

An interior vision throughout the joy of the album is contained especially on the medley beginning with ‘Drum Song’ a piece by Lovano that seques into ‘Spiritual’ by John Coltrane and then the Harold Arlen standard ‘Over The Rainbow’. In this symphony of soaring spirits every element of this excellent live album is present. The fire inside burns and creates, the circle of life expressed and distilled to its very core. SG

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First published in 2014. Last heard from, Olavi Luohivuori was appearing with prog-jazzers Oddarrang. Now here with his brother, trumpeter Jorma Kalevi Luohivouri, who opens on ‘Waves’ in the style of Nils Petter Molvær altering dramatically to a more mainstream style on ‘Dark Forest’, and with bassist Antti Lötjonen, the drummer is playing to a different beat and adopting a different, less prominent role.

Nearly all the tunes on this studio album, where lovingly harvested electronics mingle with acoustic sounds that were all recorded in February seven years on from the first of the trio’s albums for Camjazz, are the trumpet-playing Luohivuori’s. And while not exactly gripping it’s all perfectly listenable to, the freebop stop/start oddity ‘Old Devil’s Boogie’ maybe the pick. However, the trio have their work cut out to match Oddarrang’s ideas and sheer imagination. SG

2019 Highlight: Enrico Rava, Joe Lovano, Roma, ECM

Sun trio, In the Dreamworld, CamJazz