Chicago: Night & Day (Big Band) (Giant).
Neither jazz purists nor die-hard rock devotees are likely to be seduced by the latest release from Chicago, but anyone who appreciates first-rate musicianship, imaginative instrumental arrangements and the classic American pop song probably will embrace this recording.
Chicago’s heartfelt evocation of the Big Band era succeeds not simply because the band clearly reveres repertoire associated with the orchestras of Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Jimmie Lunceford and the like, but also because Chicago reinvents this music in idiosyncratic terms. The driving backbeat of “Chicago,” the gleaming brass lines of “Night and Day,” the smoldering vocals and atmospheric instrumentals of “Blues in the Night” represent classic Chicago yet also suggest the mood and the idiom of the original, Big Band versions.
