Anita Martorana

Enrico Morello Cyclic Signs

The native of Rome, drummer and composer Enrico Morello (1988) has been playing drums since he was nine and learning jazz since he was thirteen. At the summer jazz workshops in Siena, he first caught the eye of Enrico Rava and Gianluigi Trovesi. He then attended a special master class for professional musicians, learning from Eric Harland, Jeff Ballard, Billy Hart and Billy Drummond, among others. In 2010, he presented the school's work with a sextet in Boston and New York, and at the Panama Jazz Festival. Later he became a professor at Siena Jazz University.

During the 2010s, he became the favorite sideman on the Italian scene, collaborating with numerous jazzmen, including Paolo Fresu, Mirko Signorile, Francesco Ponticelli, Alessandro Lanzoni and Francesco Diodati. He gained the greatest acclaim as a member of Enrico Rava's quartet: the album Wild Dance (ECM, 2015) won them the title of the best Italian jazz band in the Musica Jazz magazine poll, and he collaborates with this legendary artist on other occasions, such as the septet Edizione Speciale (ECM, 2021).

He recorded over thirty albums as a sideman, most of them on the leading Italian jazz label Auand, finally releasing his debut as a leader Cyclic Signs in 2021. In a quartet format with trumpet, alto sax, bass and drums, the initial inspiration is Ornette Coleman, no doubt. The driving force is the rhythms of life and their numerous transformations, as well as dance, challenging the listener with unexpected twists. On the other hand, harmony plays a central role in the larger picture, combining monophonic instruments into polyphonic structures of a diverse environment.

https://enricomorello.com/