From Turin to New York, from Buenos Aires to Atlanta, Enrico Rava has shaped contemporary jazz over the last fifty years. In the film, together with colleagues and friends, he retraces his life saved and shaped by his encounter with music.
With the trumpet player, his personal stories and compelling encounters from the Sixties to the present day, Note Necessarie takes us on a journey (not only biographical) through the world of jazz, to discover its power as revolutionary music and as a liberating art that transforms itself along with society.
Interwoven with music and concerts, exclusive materials and interviews with Carla Bley, Roswell Rudd, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Francesco Tullio Altan and many others, enriched by rare materials – from Gato Barbieri filmed by Pasolini to the presence of Michel Petrucciani – and crossed with theoretical reflections, the film leads to the secret core of jazz, to what makes it a language of freedom, as well as a musical genre.
It is that unpredictability of improvisation, which is preserved in its unwritten, rebellious, and at the same time open and inclusive soul. As Enrico Rava reminds us: “When everything works, it is a perfect democracy, which only jazz can create“.
Biography of Enrico Rava
Enrico Rava is undoubtedly the most internationally known and appreciated Italian jazz musician. Always engaged in the most diverse and stimulating experiences, he appeared on the jazz scene in the mid-sixties, quickly establishing himself as one of the most convincing soloists of European jazz. His human and artistic frankness puts him outside any scheme and makes him a rigorous musician, but heedless of conventions. His lyrical sonority, stands out strongly in all his musical adventures.
Among his numerous discography are to report the unmissable “Quartet” (ECM, 1978) “Rava l’opera Va” (Label Bleu, 1993), “Easy Living” (ECM, 2004), “Tati” (ECM, 2005) , “The Words and the Days” (ECM, 2007), “New York Days” (ECM, 2009), “Tribe” (ECM, 2011) e “On The Dance Floor ” (ECM, 2012).Long is the list of musicians with whom he has collaborated, Italian, European, American: Franco D’Andrea, Massimo Urbani, Stefano Bollani, Joe Henderson, John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny, Archie Shepp, Miroslav Vitous, Daniel Humair, Michel Petrucciani, Charlie Mariano, Joe Lovano, Albert Mangelsdorff, Dino Saluzzi, Richard Gallliano, Martial Solal, Steve Lacy, Mark Tuner, John Scofield etc…
He has performed tours and concerts in USA, Japan, Canada, Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, participating in the most important jazz festivals in the world. He has been voted several times best musician in the annual poll of the magazine Musica Jazz. Appointed “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” by the French Minister of Culture, in 2002 he also received the prestigious “Jazzpar Prize” in Copenhagen.
In recent years he has appeared at the top of the American magazine Down Beat, in the section reserved for trumpet players, behind Dave Douglas, Wynton Marsalis and Roy Hargrove, and in that reserved for the best groups, with the quintet called TRIBE. And it is the first time that an Italian band is included in this ranking.
In 2011, for Feltrinelli Editore, the book INCONTRI CON MUSICISTI STRAORDINARI – La storia del mio jazz (MEETINGS WITH EXTRAORDINARY MUSICIANS – The story of my jazz) was published, that is the story of the last fifty years of jazz in the amusing words of one of the absolute protagonists of contemporary music.
July 2011 has seen him starring in a European tour with a new great project “Tea for Three”, together with Dave Douglas, Avisahi Cohen and Uri Caine. In October 2013 was published for the editorial L’Espresso “Rava On The Road” with a group consisting of Giovanni Guidi, Roberto Cecchetto, Stefano Senni and Zeno De Rossi and the Symphony Orchestra of the Teatro Regio in Turin conducted by Paolo Silvestri.
Currently, in addition to his RAVA TRIBE (together with Gianluca Petrella, Giovanni Guidi, Gabriele Evangelista and Fabrizio Sferra), he loves to perform with the recently formed quartet, composed by Francesco Diodati on guitar, Gabriele Evangelista on double bass and Enrico Morello on drums. With this new formation, flanked by Gianluca Petrella, in January 2015 he recorded a new album for ECM “Wild Dance”, which was a great success and appreciation of public and critics. Rava New 4et was elected best group of 2015 according to the Musica Jazz magazine poll.
