I knew that, but you made my point anyway.  ECM wouldn't have released it if that sound didn't appeal to Eicher.

Thanks, I'm not sure I knew that but I did know that its companion piece was released on IAI so should have realised  

Consider that in the notion of playing "around"  the best is implicit that there is a best there in the first place. Can't blame ECM for that. Sunny Murray maybe  So I don't blame that, I just note that the overall playing is less physically engaged than I prefer, or maybe even able to engage with. The life experience they communicate is not one that I've had, and to this point Ive no appetite to experience. But 21st Century ECM ...Enrico Rava!

Co-sign all of this and embarrassed that I forgot to mention Tucker's Ellington Reader in particular, which I consider essential for Ellingtonians. (Iirc Tucker also wrote the notes for Mosaic's Ellington Reprise box.)  He's yet to appear in this thread, but I believe Joe Medjuck has.

Worth mentioning that album was not recorded for ECM - it was recorded in 1967, ECM just released it a few years later. There’s a great quote I have trouble sourcing but definitely remember reading, from Branford Marsalis - Led Zeppelin sounded they way they did because they were really into classic American blues (and British folk music).  If you try to imitate them without that same background, you’ll end up sounding like Whitesnake. Seems applicable here when talking about younger musicians replicating the “ECM sound”.