Enzo Favata’s Atlantico quintet explores the musical space where jazz, chamber music dynamics and improvisation meet – never predictable, but with a strong sense of direction grounded in vast musical backgrounds, including the multitude of traditional southern musical dialects that surround them in Southern Italy and around the Mediterranean. Led by Sardinian saxophonist and clarinettist Enzo Favata, with long-time collaborator Marcello Peghin on guitar, bandoneonist Daniel Di Bonaventura, double bassist Salvatore Maltana and drummer UT Gandhi, on Ritornare – Favata’s first recording for ECM – the group creates a richly coloured acoustic sound world shaped by travel, memory and imagination. Drawing inspiration from the cultural crossings of the Atlantic and the literary visions of writers such as Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges, Atlantico’s music unfolds with dream-like flow. Favata’s lyrical reeds, Peghin’s graceful guitar textures, Di Bonaventura’s evocative bandoneon and the subtle interplay of bass and drums form structures where clear melodies seem to emerge from nowhere and become transformed by a quintet that moves with a natural sense of dialogue and discovery. All About Jazz has said, “in Favata’s world, and like all great groups, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” – a statement that couldn’t be more appropriate than here. The album was recorded in Munich, January 2026 and produced by Manfred Eicher.