First Rain is the latest album by the pianist Emiliano D’Auria, in release May 28th for the Norwegian record label Losen Records. At the head of a quartet formed by Luca Aquino at the trumpet, Giacomo Ancillotto at the guitar, Dario Miranda at the double bass and Ermanno Baron at the drums, Emiliano D’Auria has made to measure 12 new tracks, 12 talking landscapes, recorded between February and March 2023 in the far away and boundless Norwegian scenery of the Island of Giske, awaiting the approaching ”first rain”.

First Rain holds all the energy of immeasurable spaces, the breath of broad visions, the perception of changes, both imminent and upcoming, and of an approaching ”first” rain. A native of Ascoli Piceno and artistic director of the JazzAP Festival and the Cotton Jazz Club of Ascoli Piceno, D’Auria, in his fifth album release but the second with this ensemble, composes a music full of awesomeness, of authenticity. A very evocative flow of sounds that gives life to a rarefied, mystic atmosphere.

However, without giving up space for solo performances, the instruments of the quartet interact in unison and are geared toward the construction of a collective thought. The lyricism of Aquino’s trumpet, the rough sound of Ancillotto’s six strings, the more melodic pianism of D’Auria’s piano, the certainty and the perfect intonation of Miranda’s double bass together with the genuine, free approach of Baron’s improvisation are all distinctive and referable traits that lead back to the single elements which once mixed together magically transform into a common sound. It is the search for this sound that identifies D’Auria’s intentions and the stylistic signature.

Magmatic sounds, offering a rarified wealth, can be captured within the, at times quite loose, sound meshes; where the absence of bight colors depicts a crepuscular visionary beauty with an eye towards a faint yet clear light that announces rain, hope and rebirth.