That IkeMoses dude might kill me for this but much of my favorite jazz from the late-50's-early 60's is stuff like Mingus and (pre-avantgarde era-he didn't really get weird until later with some exceptions) Sun Ra; artists that were going beyond the somewhat generic head-solos-head structure and instead were looking back to big band music in terms of arrangements and structure but mixing that with more collective improvisation and a more "modern" tonal language.

No, my problem with Evans group-concept is that the collective improvisation seems to aim more for a chamber-music/classical informed style rather than an update of the New Orleans/early jazz-approach. This is of course related to the temperament but it also comes through in the nature of the interplay and the note-choices.

Because of that, the music was obviously very important in helping shaping many of the ideas that the ECM-guys and Keith Jarrett etc. would run with later and while I like those ideas as a *spice* in more "hot" jazz, I find much of this music not really to my liking; it's a bit too impressionistic and "floating" for my tastes (I won't call it "too white" because that's a cliche that's not really true-several of the other musicians who helped shape this approach in the 40's-50's were black)...