Corners Enrico Rava, Fearless Five, Joe Lovano

• 1 Certi Angoli Segreti 11:39
• 2 Sin Peso 04:38
• 3 Le Mie Gambe 03:11
• 4 Sun Rava 10:43
• 5 Hitchcock at the Beach 04:25
• 6 Tone, Shape and Colours 05:36
• 7 Ça va sans dire 03:20
• 8 Bowery Dance 05:09
• 9 Mamma 06:39
• Total Runtime 55:20

Info for Corners

For his new recording, Italian trumpeter and long-time label-companion Enrico Rava has surrounded himself with a new generation of Italian players eager to defy the paradigm. As a collective they call themselves the Fearless Five – a quintet joined here by guest saxophonist Joe Lovano for an album of all-original music, fashioned with a sense of adventure and panache as the Italo-American connection draws from a common pool of imagination.

The Fearless Five, who take their name from the Rava-composition first heard on his 1978 Enrico Rava Quartet album (ECM 1122), were formed at an impromptu concert outside Rome, in 2022: „We had so much fun on the bandstand that night, even without a proper rehearsal, that I decided more or less on the spot that this should be my new band“, he remembers.

Corners, the group’s first record for the label, is abound with evocative melodies, representative of Rava’s signature lyrical style but also new facets, brought to the table by his younger conspirators as well as Lovano’s unique sensibilities to adapt to any player, idiom and room. Rava and Lovano are old acquaintances whose collaborative 2019 date Roma (ECM 2654) led French paper Le Monde to call the pair “two of jazz’s greatest – musicians of intense expressiveness”. Guitarist Francesco Diodati is the only member of the core-group who has played with Rava in other constellations. “He understands exactly what I need or like, and somehow that transpires into the band. I can let them be very free in what they do, I don’t really need to give them instructions“, says the leader.

The programme consists of originals from Rava, Lovano and all members of the Fearless Five. Rava explains: „As they all have their own bands, where they are leaders and composers, I thought it makes sense to let each one of us contribute tunes to that new album – this makes Corners pretty different from my other albums.“

Proceedings open with “Certo Angeli Segreti“, a Rava-original that emanates a spirit of cool and discovery that sets the tone for a varied album: The horns alternate with spacious interaction throughout, Rava providing melodic clarity, trombonist Matteo Paggi a bolstering lower register, while Lovano occasionally takes flight with the entire history of American bop seemingly at his fingertips.

Free-form abstraction and deeply melodic passages are in a tight embrace across the entire album, with the band’s interplay on high alert. Diodati and Ponticello contribute ballads, as well as drummer Evita Polidoro, who makes an evocative appearance as a vocalist on her self-penned „Le Mie Gambe“. „Sun Rava“, written by Lovano, starts as an abstract blues and leads the group into uncharted territory where momentum fluctuates repeatedly. Enrico Rava’s „Hitchcock at the Beach“, tinged with nostalgia, brings more extensive soloing by Lovano.

„Tone, Shape and Colours“, a free improvisation triggered by a motif from Lovano gives all three horn players space to engage in lively musical conversation, whereas Rava’s „Bowery Dance“ with its earthy groove “is a rather old composition of mine that recalls the atmosphere I experienced back in my New York years.“ Matteo Paggi’s „Mamma“ concludes the album on a tender note.

Enrico Rava, trumpet, flugelhorn
Matteo Paggi, trombone
Francesco Diodati, guitar
Francesco Ponticelli, double bass
Evita Polidoro, drums, vocals
Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone

Recorded in July 21-23, 2025 at Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Enrico Rava
Self-taught Trieste-born trumpeter Enrico Rava is the grand master of Italian jazz. Originally a Dixieland trombonist, he switched to trumpet in his teens after hearing Miles Davis. In 1967, he moved to New York (“where my idols were, all the people I wanted to meet”), and found his musical direction, playing with Roswell Rudd, Cecil Taylor, Charlie Haden, Carla Bley and the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra among others.

Even in experimental periods Rava has remained above all a melodic player, a tendency refined and developed through a career which has touched on all aspects of the jazz tradition. His early ECM album, The Pilgrim and the Stars (1975), already set high standards. A decade and several acclaimed albums later, following Volver (1986), came a seventeen year leave of absence from the label, which ended with Easy Living, his 2003 triumphant return with an all-Italian quintet, which showcased the leader’s burnished, wide-open tone at its best.

Since that return, Rava has gone from strength to strength, releasing a series of truly exceptional albums, including Tati, The Words and The Days, The Third Man and New York Days. In 2010 came Tribe, which presents Rava at his most lyrically inspired, leading a band of bright young talents. His band has become a kind of finishing school for Italian jazz musicians, and many of his sidemen have gone on to become distinguished bandleaders in their own right, recent examples being Stefano Bollani, Giovanni Guidi and Gianluca Petrella.

“When I choose a musician to be in my band, I only call musicians I love and who I can trust musically. I give them a lot of freedom because I trust them. I have to trust them, and they have to trust me – at that point, everything is possible.”

Fearless Five
The latter – guitarist Francesco Diodati, bassist Francesco Ponticelli, trombonist Matteo Paggi, and drummer/singer Evita Polidoro – have already proven themselves able to hang with the eclectic Rava no matter what path he chooses to race down, from post bop to chamber jazz to avant improv. So the versatile Lovano fits right in.

Booklet for Corners