Gently

I like the band as a great contemporary example of large jazz ensembles. You could attend a live concert and find little difference with this recording. Their "Meeting of the Minds" with the vocal group New York Voices begs for more such pairings. Live is difficult to find but if you find large ensembles, please support them. Pax et Lux

Of course this is more of Bob's great Big Band arrangement and writing. The artists (as usual) are first rate. But the thing that makes this album stand out is the quality of the recording. Bob and DMP have experimented for years with innovative recording technique. This album is sheer perfection. I listen to this on a high end discrete component system with a high end amp and electrostatic speakers. The ambience, imagining and clarity of this album are amazing. Bob is really here performing in the room in front of me!

I love it

I discovered this album while listening to a San Francisco Bay area Jazz station.I didn't know the name Bob Mintzer at the time, and had not yet become acquainted with his dazzling resumé as a composer.What caught my ear was the purity of the Big Band vibe that came from a single piece, "Gently," the title track. I could hear that this group nailed the true spirit of the soulful, swinging Big Band sound in all its complexity and lightness, elegance, and truth.Were it not for the pristine digital recording mix, I would certainly have believed I was listening to a piece from the middle fifties; something blessed by the caresses of the passing angel of Duke Ellington, perhaps, but not strictly speaking. Then I detected a time jump into an era reminiscent of the horn section in Nat Adderley's late 1960's gorgeous sessions which clearly inspired much of the bopping scores heard in those superb early 1970's TV shows and movies - Lalo Shifrin style...I initially purchased the album expecting to never hear another track like the one that caught my ear, but lo and behold, to my surprise, I fell head first into a full album whose treasures took me beyond all my highest expectations. Every track burst with unpredictable extensions of all the goods that the teaser I first heard intimated. Bob Mintzer's Big Band is a dream come true. It's not only music like they don't make anymore, it's also music they never quite made before... Music that's anchored in a tradition which is hard for me to name, but which I know, with infinite certainty, belongs to a universe of total melodic integrity, beyond the conscious, intellectual mind.I became lost in Gently. Unable to stop playing it in loops, for days on end.Gently is a true tribute to a spirit of an era in our psyche which exists outside of time, yet, is very real in the collective understanding we hold of our cultural history.It makes little sense to try and describe the tunes on this album, but it seems important to mention that the journey wraps with a delicate and tapering, deeply soulful, perhaps even mournful quartet, that breathes softly, like an old man sitting on a porch watching a gathering storm.This album is a journey.I hope I encouraged you to take it for a spin. You will not be disappointed!

2002年の録音。お得意のシャープでピーキーなアンサンブルは鳴りを潜め、実に優しく穏やかでスインギー。一瞬はぐらかされた様な物足りなさを感じるが、聴き込めばやはり緻密に計算された音。カスミをかけた様なホーンのアレンジも素敵。演奏者が一流で難なくこなしているが、こうした微妙なサウンド・コントロールは難易度が高そう。オリジナル曲が多いが全編スタンダード調でゆったりと楽しめるアルバム。