Enrico Rava/Fred Hersch: The Song Is You

Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava has a way of casting a spell with his golden-toned, less-is-more approach to his instrument. Joining Rava in the studio with pianist Fred Hersch, another hopeless romantic with a lyrical bent and an adventurous sense of creating off the cuff, was an inspired notion. While Rava’s luminous flugelhorn carries the lion’s share of the melody work here, Hersch animates this duo session with inventive orchestration that is filled with humor, grace, and verve. They set an intimate tone with a romantic opener, Jobim’s “Retreat em Banco e Preto,” before delving into more darkly dissonant territory on the freewheeling “Improvisation,” which incorporates some playful call-and-response between flugelhorn and piano. The duo’s jauntily swinging rendition of “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” finds Hersch channeling his inner Chick Corea while the title track, an oft-covered jazz standard that is generally swung in uptempo fashion, opens with an exploratory, deconstructionist aesthetic before settling into a glorious balladic reading of the Jerome Kern classic. Other highlights include Hersch’s engaging “Child’s Song,” the duo’s highly impressionistic reading of Thelonious Monk’s “Misterioso,” and Hersch’s deeply introspective solo piano rendition of Monk’s “’Round Midnight.”