This is not from the Manchester Sports Guild Hall in the UK where so many great mainstream sessions were recorded back in the day, but a not-for-profit US arts organisation in Pittsburgh that has played host to several recordings, including a sequence of albums by Bob Mintzer's excellent big band. His writing is as brilliantly textured as ever, and his own distinctive soloing is well matched by his cohorts, including altoist Bob Sheppard and baritone player Roger Rosenberg. The fare on offer is nine standards and one Mintzer original, but the issue with the album is the integration with the big band of the vocal quartet, New York Voices. Some of their close harmony work is passable, including a nicely paced version of ‘I Concentrate on You’, but the vocal soloing leaves quite a bit to be desired. None of the singers is quite distinctive enough to inhabit a song with conviction, and the album opens with a version of ‘Autumn Leaves’ in which Nazarian and Kinhan indulge in some of the worst kind of vocal clichés, including that irritating half sob leading into a phrase that was so commonplace among the wannabes in the 1980s TV series Fame. So an album to be approached with some caution, and a meeting not so much of minds but of opposites, in which a top rank big band with some great players is compromised by vocalists who are not up to the same incredibly high standard of musicianship and finesse.