New York Days

On the 2009 release, New York Days, the lyrical Italian trumpet player Enrico Rava is joined by musicians who are masterful at creating impressionistic swaths of sound. The result is a lovely marriage of melodicism and refined abstraction. Rava’s frequent collaborator, the Italian pianist Stefano Bollani, plays lines that flutter like the beating of bird wings or slowly unfold in delicate ways. Tenor saxophonist Mark Turner has a great tone and sense of nuance, and bassist Larry Grenadier’s playing ranges from artfully spare to hard-swinging. Throughout, Paul Motian displays his unique approach to the trap kit; time is a wonderfully flexible thing for this drummer and clichés are nowhere in sight. (It’s also amazing how engrossingly minimal his work can be — Motian’s not afraid to strike a cymbal just once and let the listener savor the hit’s hissing decay.) There are no going-through-the-motions gestures when the horns play the songs’ heads, either; the intermingling of reed and brass tones is absolutely gorgeous. Don’t let the mellow surface of much of New York Days fool you. Listen up: this is music to dig into.