Enrico Rava / Stefano Bollani - The Third Man

They have been playing together since the early 1990s, Bollani hailing trumpeter Rava as his mentor, and Rava regarding Bollani as “perhaps the most gifted pianist since Art Tatum”. After Rava’s highly acclaimed “Easy Living” (quintet featuring Bollani) and the Rava/Bollani/Paul Motian collaboration “Tati”, comes this superb duo set, recorded in Lugano in November 2006.

Here is marvellous linear playing and melodies plucked from the air, two master improvisers making freely lyrical jazz together – inspired by jazz history, South American music (an important source for both musicians), the Italian song tradition, contemporary composition and more, all developed, under Manfred Eicher’s supervision, into a unique programme. The repertoire includes compositions by each of the protagonists, two takes of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s famous ballad “Retrato Em Branco Y Preto”, a reinvention of “Estate” by the Italian singer Bruno Martino (whose own inspirations included Neapolitan folk song as well as jazz ) and spontaneous –yet profoundly melodic – free improvisation on the title track.