Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani

Bollani and Rava, or the art of the duo. Together they’ve developed a very wide-ranging musical language that is as congruent as it is quick-witted, unpredictable, and poetic. Bollani puts his phenomenal technique in the service of the music always, and Rava sings on the trumpet in an ever-clearer voice.

Stefano Bollani was just thirteen, a young student at the Florence conservatory, when he first heard Enrico Rava in concert, a key experience he says, “and one of the first concerts I ever saw.” This period, he was beginning to explore a wide range of musical options, inspired by the entire classical music tradition and by popular music both international and Italian, and starting to understand the range of jazz. He would come to consider Rava his mentor after the trumpeter advised him to get out of pop music and make improvisation his priority. But even when they first played together, the relationship was never simply one of teacher and pupil: From the beginning, says the pianist, Rava was open to his melodic propositions, and would take them and build upon them in his own solo statements. This is the model they have followed to date.

"Though trumpeter Rava and pianist Bollani were once mentor and protégé, a decade of collaboration has put them on equal footing, so much so that they now communicate with intuitive ease, anticipating each other’s moves and, at times, seamlessly extending each other’s phrases." (jazztimes.com)

Flagey, Winterjazz