Pete Mills, This Is Now Review

by Stamish Malcuss

Listening to Pete Mills’ This Is Now, one finds themself drawn to the sense that the music unfolds as an ongoing conversation.

That realization arrived gradually. At first, the record presents itself as a showcase of variety. Over the course of twelve tracks, Mills and his ensemble move through contemporary post-bop, straight-ahead swing, Latin-inflected grooves, balladry, fusion-adjacent textures, a piano-and-saxophone duet, a chordless trio, and a closing duet for tenor saxophone and drums. On paper, it sounds like a great deal of territory to cover in sixty-five minutes.

When listening to the album and paying attention to the stylistic flow. What sufaced was the sound of Pete Mills navigating each setting with elegance that the styles themselves ceased to matter.

Recorded with pianist Kenny Banks Jr., guitarist Pete McCann, bassist Martin Wind, and drummer Matt Wilson, This Is Now benefits from a band whose core strength collectively is the ability to listen. Each performance is filled with rhythmic and melodic ideas being caught, echoed, expanded, and returned. A phrase introduced by Mills appears moments later in the drums. A rhythmic figure migrates from the saxophone to the guitar. The bass reinforces a melodic contour that had seemed destined to disappear after a single chorus.

The ensemble is excellent throughout, but what fascinated me most was what those interactions revealed about Mills himself. Musicians do not respond that quickly to vague ideas. They respond to clarity.

And clarity is the defining characteristic of Mills’ improvisational language.

The title track brings a contemporary post-bop framework that shifts comfortably between straight-eighth and swinging feels, the composition provides fertile ground for improvisation. Mills enters with a tenor sound that remains one of the album’s most consistent pleasures: warm, round, and centered, carrying authority without heaviness.

What stands out is not simply the tone itself, but the way he uses it. A motive appears early in his solo. Rather than abandoning it at the first harmonic turn, he follows it. He stretches it rhythmically, nudges it into different parts of the register, and allows it to evolve naturally through the form. By the time the piano and guitar solos arrive, the listener has never lost track of where the story began. The story continues in Banks Jr.’s and McCann’s solos too.

That word, story, repeatedly comes to mined when listening. Not because the solos are programmatic or narrative in any literal sense, but because Mills and company consistently favors development over accumulation. Many improvisers seem eager to demonstrate how much vocabulary they possess. These musicians appears more interested in showing what can happen to an idea once it captures his attention.

The effect becomes especially noticeable on “Up to Go Down.” The tune’s fast-moving hard-bop energy initially suggests a blowing vehicle, but Mills approaches it with surprising patience. During the opening trio section with bass and drums, his lines are fluid and harmonically assured, but what draws the ear is the way small motif figures kept resurfacing in altered forms. You always know where you are in the tune. The form remains audible. The improvisation unfolds less like a display of information and more like a conversation developing through a group setting.

That quality appears throughout the album. On “Don’t Stomp on My Dream,” Mills navigates a familiar harmonic framework with melodic clarity. The changing chords illuminate themselves in his lines. On “Sliver of Silver,” he moves between riff-based figures and more expansive post-bop language with a focus on the continuity of the solo. Even in the more energetic moments, there is very little sense of rushing. The ideas simply continue unfolding.

What makes This Is Now interesting is the way that continuity survives in each of the song’s setting. Listening to the album gives a sense the focus is on how to sustain a line of thought. The statement is not stylistic, but philosophical. The strongest solos here feel guided by sustained curiosity rather than urgency.

“Daddies” swings with obvious affection for the hard-bop tradition. Mills responds with a gruffer tone, blues-inflected phrases, expressive fall-offs, and a rhythmic buoyancy that feels deeply rooted in the language of classic jazz. Yet a few tracks later, “Sunset STX” finds him inhabiting an entirely different environment. Supported by syncopated Latin rhythms and McCann’s warm nylon-string guitar textures, his phrasing becomes more relaxed, more romantic, and more spacious.

The vocabulary changes. The personality does not. That observation explains the success of the album. Mills sounds comfortable in every room he walks into. Whether the music leans toward swing, Latin jazz, contemporary post-bop, ballad writing, or fusion-inflected groove, he never sounds as though he is adjusting his identity to fit the surroundings. Instead, the surroundings reveal different aspects of the same musical voice.

“Bird Lives” strips the music down to a duet between Mills and Banks Jr., and the result is musical. Banks alternates between stride-inspired motion, walking bass figures, and harmonic commentary while Mills swings with a relaxed authority that recalls an earlier jazz era without ever losing focus on his sound. What becomes immediately apparent is how much of his musical personality resides in phrasing. The way he leans into a downbeat. The way a slur shapes the contour of a line. The way a phrase expands and contracts against the pulse.

Nothing is hidden. Nothing needs to be. A similar feeling emerges during “Window Shopping.” The chordless trio setting inevitably places greater responsibility on the melodic instruments, and Mills rises to the challenge beautifully. The performance brought to mind the structural freedom associated with the great saxophone trios of jazz history, not because the music sounds alike, but because the absence of a chordal instrument creates a similar sense of exposure.

Mills’ ability to balance tradition and modern vocabulary becomes apparent. A bluesy phrase may be followed by a line colored with more contemporary harmonic language. An altissimo cry gives way to a soulful lower-register response. Yet nothing feels stitched together. Everything belongs to the same voice.

For the closer, the album reaches to Billy Strayhorn’s “U.M.M.G.,” making the reduction complete. Only tenor saxophone and Wilson’s brushes on the set remain. The performance lasts barely ninety seconds, yet it feels strangely important. Mills shapes the melody through dynamics, register shifts, glissandos, and subtle articulation changes. Wilson responds with the sensitivity of a conversational partner rather than an accompanist. There are no dense arrangements, no harmonic cushions, no dramatic climaxes waiting around the corner.

Just melody. Time. Sound. And that is enough. In fact, it may be the key to understanding the entire album.

Listen to This Is Now, its stylistic versatility is clear. Impressive as that versatility is, it feels secondary to a larger achievement. What lingers is not a catalog of genres or influences. It is the memory of musicians who understand how to guide a listener through a wide range of musical environments without ever allowing the thread of the conversation to break.

That is harder than it sounds. Pete Mills does something subtle throughout This Is Now.

He keeps the listener oriented, making every phrase feel connected to the one before it. He gives the music direction without sacrificing spontaneity.

Listen closely, and that is the album’s quiet achievement. The styles change. The instrumentation shifts. The musical scenery keeps moving. Yet the narrative never breaks. No matter where the music travels, there is always a story waiting on the other side of the next phrase.