There's no downside to being a Miles Davis disciple, if you can do something as personal with that sound as Miles did himself. Enrico Rava, the great Italian trumpeter who has brought as intimately intense a Mediterranean perspective to the Miles legacy as his fellow ECM brassman Tomasz Stańko did from a more introverted East European one, apparently regarded this 2003 session – a return to ECM in Rava's early sixties after a 17-year gap – as his best work. An undisguised scan across his past but fuelled by his evolution, the session glimpsed some of the Italian's earliest inspirations in Dixieland music, swept through bebop phrasing powerfully reminiscent of the young Miles of the 1950s, but drew on later and looser methods too. The band is wonderful, with voice-like trombonist Gianluca Petrella closely marking the leader, and idiomatically unshackled pianist Stefano Bollani guiding an alert and selfless rhythm section. Rava's warm sound and resigned grace fold beautifully into Petrella's high harmonies on the tiptoeing Cromosomi’, ‘Sand’ is like Ellington's ‘Caravan’ at a dreamwalk, and the famous title-track is an exquisite slow interpretation with Bollani very gently tweaking the underpinnings. The rocking ‘Algir Dalbughi’ nods to Mingus’ ‘Boogie Stop Shuffle’, ‘Blancasnow’ makes a soliloquy out of a handful of trumpet notes, ‘Hornette And The Drums Thing’ gives Ornette's short-phrase impetuosity a fluid, deep-horn grace, while Bollani and Rava are eloquently pin-sharp throughout. Easy Living is a classic session.