Mondo Jazz

TRIBE AL BIRDLAND

Mentre io e i miei 150-200 lettori quotidiani siamo qui a interrogarci sul significato e sul valore del jazz italiano, la sua figura più rappresentativa, Enrico Rava, è in tournè negli Stati Uniti e nei giorni scorsi assecondato dal quintetto Tribe (Petrella, Guidi, Evangelista e Sferra) ha dato una serie di concerti al Birdland.

Ecco allora una recensione di Ben Ratliff tratta dal New York Times. Ratliff, scrittore, critico e anche blogger, ma sopratutto personaggio completamente estraneo alle vicende delle quali noi dibattiamo, è sicuramente una voce autorevole e influente.

The Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava has a soft, open, even sound, without vibrato, and he started his early set at Birdland on Thursday with a three-part suite of his own music. Enlarge This Image Richard Termine for The New York Times From left, Gianluca Petrella, Enrico Rava and Gabriele Evangelista of the Enrico Rava Quintet, at Birdland.

Breaking news about the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia and more. Go to Arts Beat » A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics. Go to Event Listings » “Choctaw,” a fast-moving song rooted in a single chord with a lot of expressive, figurative improvising was sandwiched between “Planet Earth” and “Tears for Neda,” ballads with strong melodies and bubbling free rhythm from piano, bass and drums.

If you cued up those songs, from his album “Tribe,” released last year by ECM, you’d be hearing a lot of pathos. On Thursday, happily, the music was harder to define. It sounded a little nostalgic for the stretches of time that he lived and worked in New York, in the 1960s and ’70s. You heard echoes of the strong, strange melodies and agitated mobility of music by Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Paul Bley and Carla Bley. But you didn’t hear only that. Mr. Rava, 72, has been playing at Birdland once a year or so, and it’s good to see him in real time.

His sound is special, but he doesn’t make it feel precious, or guarded, or set off. He doesn’t put it on a cushion. He’s never stuck in one position, and he’s a member of his band, not just its regent. His quintet, with much younger players — the trombonist Gianluca Petrella, the pianist Giovanni Guidi, the bassist Gabriele Evangelista and the drummer Fabrizio Sferra — thoroughly changed some of the pieces as they moved along: tonality, rhythm, everything.

“Certi Angoli Secreti” began as a mischievous minor waltz evoking Nino Rota movie scores, but Mr. Guidi smuggled all sorts of other language into it: blues, minimalism, bebop, all running together on an even plane. The song might have contained some pretty clichés, but Mr. Guidi helped the group transcend them.

A version of Cherry’s “Art Deco” began with an unaccompanied duet, full of improvised counterpoint, between Mr. Rava and Mr. Petrella, the front line and core of the group. Their dispositions work beautifully together: Mr. Petrella with his quick reflexes and sudden bursts into pure sound and texture; Mr. Rava’s with his steady, stately playing. But they didn’t merely act as opposites, they often seemed to be trained on the same goal. Their playing was, now and then, the real thing: searching, impulsive, almost self-sacrificial.