CamJazz continues to dominate the European jazz market (only ECM comes close in quantity and quality of recent releases) with another set of CDs featuring a prominent Italian jazz musician. This time the featured artist is trumpet and flugelhorn player Enrico Rava, featured on both the Tommaso-Rava Quartet’s La Dolce Vita and on the pianoless quartet CD Full of Life.

Full of Life finds Rava, together with saxophonist Javier Girotto, heading a pianoless quartet which immediately invites comparison with the most famous such quartet, that featuring Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker. Such groups can fail if the lead players aren’t simpatico, or if the rhythm section isn’t sturdy or can’t sustain interest without the addition of a chordal instrument. Neither is the case here, as Girotto (a graduate of studies at the Music Conservatory in Cordoba, Argentina and Berklee College of Music in Boston) is the perfect match for Rava’s romantic style. He offers not only baritone sax work on this disc, but also soprano, which helps vary the tonal colors at the group’s disposal. Bassist Ares Tavolazzi and drummer Fabrizio Sferra show right out of the gate that they’re here to play, nailing the Latin American rhythms of Rava’s “Recuerdos” and keeping it solid and interesting throughout. At the same time, they can float like the proverbial butterfly, as on the wistful reading of “Surrey With the Fringe on Top.” Here the group sounds very much like the Mulligan/Baker group (with Rava on flugelhorn), but the clarity of the group’s vision keeps it from sounding like a mere imitation.

Those looking for more upbeat, boppish fare will enjoy a couple of originals presented here. Girotto’s composition “Miss MG” bristles with energy, and is presented in two different versions (an alternate take is included at the CD’s conclusion). Rava’s “Happiness Is To Win a Big Prize in Cash” rumbles along like a gaily-painted Baja dune buggy rolling along the Mexican countryside, serenaded by slightly off-kilter mariachis. The group’s rendition of the famous ballad “Nature Boy” offers up all the mystery and exotic nature of the song’s lyrics and mythology during the course of its eight-minute span.

Like some other recent CamJazz releases, this one was recorded and released previously in Europe (Full of Life was recorded in Udine in November 2002), but that makes little difference to American jazz fans who will want to hear this excellent recording featuring some of Italy’s finest jazz musicians.