Raf Ferrari Quartet - Waiting For Edo (2025) [Hi-Res]

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, roots (radici), can refer to a multitude of meanings. In biology, they are plants transformed in time by water that anchor themselves to the ground. In logic, they are the “origin” intended as the constitutive part of reality in which homogeneous elements add up; in maths, they are a number that, multiplied by itself, reaches another number contained within the first one.

Finally, in music, the root is the fundamental note that defines the key of a track, giving it harmony and movement, whether through contrast or affinity. This is how polysemy can help in describing this gorgeous new musical project by Raf Ferrari Quartet, here with the excellent crew of Vito Stano on cello, Claudio Sbrolli on drums and Andrea Colella on double bass.

Waiting for Edo is the logbook of a journey dedicated from a father to his kid, figure and archetypal metaphor of the root. This is the concept projected by Ferrari, pianist of great prestige and renowned composer. Seven stations in which experienced writing ability transfigures atmospheres and moods through dynamics of expressiveness, seven stations during which the gravest listening error would be to accent the plurality of musical references that develop from History with a capital letter in this very personal and familial history, now available to be shared.

Thus, overcoming the cliché of referencing Debussy here or Barry Harris there, Genesis on one side and Keith Jarrett on the other, as if name-dropping was the way to gain better credit in the inner circle, the quartet re-elaborates the customary listening experience in a circuit that is nothing but great and beautiful music, hostile to any label. The technical quality of this “pure” group, for his interplay, affinity, knowledge and storytelling abilities, allows the listener breaks and quickening of pace, storms and calm. An adventurous journey between chord superimpositions, rhythmic decomposition and blooming of cellos, that dominates the melodic section with Ferrari’s piano, deriving from melodic cells and tonal roots. In this way little Edo becomes the terminus ad quem: amidst the seven tracks everything happens and develops in an air far from serious, it is in the ensemble’s musical solidity that the joyfulness of the shipwreck unravels, in the playful impromptu, in the capacity of scrutinising and translating the world through the grammatical errors of the eyes of a child. Because, after all, roots are, however you describe them, “life” and of Life the music of Waiting for Edo overflows.

Raf Ferrari piano
Vito Stano cello
Andrea Collela double bass
Guerino Rondolone electric bass on track 7
Claudio Sbrolli drums