Enrico Rava, Stefano Bollani, Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier, Paul Motian

New York Days brings the Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava back to the city where he lived from 1967, at the head of a transatlantic quintet. It is also the first ECM appearance of the American tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, whose lean, searching sound sets off Rava's lyricism. Nine Rava compositions alternate with two collective improvisations, and the mood stays mostly slow and reflective, with sudden turns towards swing or freedom.

Rava had arrived in New York after early work with Gato Barbieri and Steve Lacy, and he later played on Carla Bley's Escalator over the Hill. The pianist Stefano Bollani has played with Rava since the early 1990s, and with the drummer Paul Motian he had already formed the trio of Tati for ECM. The bassist Larry Grenadier completes the band. The album was produced by Manfred Eicher at Avatar Studios in New York in February 2008, with James Farber as engineer. Rava gave the musicians little written material: in his words, quoted by Tim Owen on Jazzmann, only "the melodies and chords, a few lines to indicate arrangements".

Lulù opens the record at nine and a half minutes and gives Bollani room to stretch out. Outsider is the most heated piece, with what Philippe Vincent of Jazz Magazine called an Ornette-like flavour, and Turner warming up while staying precise. Luna Urbana is a tango, and Certi Angoli Segreti and Interiors, both over ten minutes, unfold at a reflective pace. In the two improvisations, Will Layman of PopMatters heard the first build an insistent rhythm under Bollani's hands, while Turner leads the second.

John Fordham wrote in The Guardian that the two horn players "both contrast sharply, and intertwine like intimates", Turner low and murmuring, Rava splitting long sounds with upper-register ascents. In The Irish Times, Ray Comiskey gave five stars and heard "a sense of a journey taken and a story told". Thomas Conrad of JazzTimes found Turner's austere lines a stark contrast to Rava's floating forms, and their counterpoint intriguing for its subtle tensions. Layman, more reserved at six out of ten, wished the record had more bite.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2064, first released on 30 January 2009.