Enrico Rava Quintet
The Words And The Days

Sometimes I look for a place where I can be at peace, because out there it's too cold. Don't get me wrong, I love winter and the harsh climate, what I mean is that feeling of autumnal sterility that clings to you like a coat that's too tight, so snug it takes your breath away and makes you feel in a constant state of agitation and discomfort. Unfortunately, I've had to wear such clothes very often throughout my life, and these days it seems they've sewn themselves onto me like a second skin, accompanying me wherever I go. I want to escape, to run as if I had damn hellhounds panting at my back, lengthening my stride until my leg joints loosen and I surpass my own breath, which in the meantime condenses in the air like a transparent cloud of vapor.

There is a particular place where I would like to get lost, an unreal place where warmth enters you without burning, while a cool breeze caresses your skin and kisses you gently on the lips, asking for nothing in return, just so... as a courtesy. I know that all this doesn't exist, but I like to think that this magical area resembles a bit the image depicted on the gorgeous cover of "The Words And The Days" by Enrico Rava's quintet, one of the most renowned Italian jazz musicians known abroad, who has managed to get through more than forty years of music unharmed without repeating himself and, above all, remaining essentially himself. His phrasing, so gentle and at the same time capable of climbing to a peak only he can see, insinuates itself under that oppressive mantle, undermining the foundations of its very existence, for how can there be a prison without the prisoner? I'm not there anymore, now I'm sitting under one of those trees, enjoying the shade and listening to the notes of Andrea Pozza's piano, which punctuate the air like distant clear and evanescent comets, while Roberto Gatto's drumsticks caress the leaves with delicacy and precision, almost as if they were morning frost; meanwhile, the earth participates in the dream, gently vibrating to the sound of Rosario Bonaccorso's double bass, savoring every twitch and flourish. Next to Rava, director of the show and itself a spectator, there is also Gianluca Petrella, the other storyteller, who with his trombone traverses this whole splendid sonic fabric, completing the spaces and ensuring the seams withstand even the chill of the night.

Behind them all, a bit on the sidelines, is Manfred Eicher, who, peeking from behind the curtain, observes the guy sitting under the tree, watches him as he closes his eyes and absorbs every sound, then withdraws backstage, aware of having set up another splendid show. "The Words And The Days," as the album title says, and it is peculiar to see how sounds are worth more than a thousand words, perhaps because they are free of those falsehoods that are thrown at us every day and passed off as good manners or civic sense; an instrument only tells a story if it perceives an essence in the one using it, otherwise it emits merely notes, empty like those people who, despite talking for hours, produce only sterile phonemes. At the beginning, I fantasized about a refuge, and it's precisely a sense of sanctuary that these great musicians have managed to reproduce in their work. Every time I play the record, it's as if I'm respectfully knocking on a door that, surely, will be opened to me...

The only problem is that sooner or later I'll have to leave that oasis, put on the too-tight coat, and return to the cold, even though I have the awareness that place is always there, it takes little: open a plastic case and place a CD on a sliding tray, then finally you can stop crying. Enrico Rava Quintet: Enrico Rava: Trumpet; Gianluca Petrella: Trombone; Andrea Pozza: Piano; Rosario Bonaccorso: Double Bass; Roberto Gatto: Drums.