Enrico Rava, Fred Hersch

Their collaboration has been hailed as a summit meeting of two jazz masters. Enrico Rava, trumpeter from Trieste, and Fred Hersch, pianist from Cincinatti, share a deep affection for the tradition and a profound sense for melodic invention. In this recording, with flugelhorn and piano glowing in the superb acoustic of the Lugano studio, Rava and Hersch explore some much-loved standards: Jerome Kern’s “The Song Is You”, Thelonious Monk’s “Mysterioso” and “’Round Midnight”, Jobim’s “Retrato em Branco e Preto”, and George Bassman’s “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You”. They also play their own tunes, Fred’s “Child’s Song” and Enrico’s “The Trial”, and improvise freely together. Enrico Rava has been an ECM artist for almost fifty years. The Song Is You is Fred Hersch’s first for the label. The album was recorded at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in November 2021, and produced by Manfred Eicher

 A seemingly unlikely duo at first glance, trumpeter Enrico Rava and pianist Fred Hersch prove to be an intuitive pairing on their first collaboration, 2022’s ‘The Song Is You’. An icon of avant-garde European jazz, Rava has long straddled the line between lyricism and atonalism, bringing together the outré work of artists like Ornette Coleman with the introspection of Chet Baker. Conversely, Hersch is the epitome of straight-ahead jazz sophistication and has earned accolades for his artful standard albums. […] While most of the standards here are well-worn, among them George Bassman’s ‘I’m Getting Sentimental Over You,’ Thelonious Monk’s ‘Mysterio,’ and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘Retrato em Branco e Preto,’ they are anything but predictable. Rava and Hersch delve deep inside their combined sound, playing off each other’s lines with a playful inventiveness. It’s a call to adventure they maximize on ‘Improvisation,’ a wholly improvised song that has the languid, dusky impressionism of a modern classical ballet performance. Equally compelling are their renditions of their own compositions.
Matt Collar, All Music