With expert scoring, a carefully chosen eight-piece band can do just about everything that a complete big band can do – except make a lot of noise. Odean Pope has a terrific flair for effective orchestration, and the band contains eight of the finest players in the United States today, himself on tenor saxophone included. In solos, too, these 10 numbers are full of delightful surprises. James Carter, best known nowadays as a flautist, plays a blinder on baritone saxophone, and Terell Stafford, that vastly under-rated trumpeter, surpasses himself.