Enrico Rava on Rhythm, Narrative, and Technology in Music

In an interview with Davide Dal Sasso for Artribune, Italian jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava discusses the foundational role of rhythm in music and life, comparing it to heartbeat and breath. He argues that rhythm is essential for communication and varies across cultures, citing differences between European classical music's rigidity and African music's flexibility. Rava explores music's unique narrative capacity, distinct from literature or cinema, as it operates on an ineffable sensory dimension. He reflects on how technology has transformed both music production and reception, noting a regression in artistic engagement due to screens and digital convenience. While embracing electronic music and collaborations with Matthew Herbert, Rava insists on preserving error, approximation, and chance as human traces. He describes jazz performance as creating a democratic space where musicians balance ego and community, projecting this onto the audience. Drawing an analogy between sound and color, he explains that musicians choose sounds like painters select colors from a palette. The interview touches on his books, including "Note necessarie" with Alberto Riva, and his memories of watching Bergman and Fellini films in Turin.