The Italian trumpeter and flugelhorn player Enrico Rava and the American pianist Fred Hersch: each has such an individual style that they might not make the most obvious combination, let alone as a duo. What they have in common is their controlled playing and their quest for beauty in sound. The occasion for this concert is their album The Song Is You on ECM Records, on which they appear as a close-knit unit despite the many diverse elements: original compositions, standards, a Brazilian piece and classics by Thelonious Monk.
Ever since the 1960s, Enrico Rava has strived to achieve a balance between melody and abstraction, between tradition and avant-garde and between European and American influences. The brass player from Turin has contributed to historical albums such as Steve Lacy’s The Forest and the Zoo, Carla Bley’s Escalator Over the Hill, and Manfred Schoof’s European Echoes.
Fred Hersch turned many heads this year with another unexpected duo, with singer Esperanza Spalding on the album Live at the Village Vanguard. In the 1970s he started out in New York in the bands of Lee Konitz and Art Farmer. Thanks to famous former students such as Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson (The Bad Plus) he has inspired a whole generation of pianists.
Enrico Rava trumpet/flugelhorn, Fred Hersch piano