For those unaware, Toronto-born saxophonist Pete Mills delivers a fast-paced, swinging new recording, This Is Now. A follow-up to 2025’s For The Record, this new release features Mills’ hard-driving tenor playing alongside an outstanding lineup of familiar collaborators: drummer Matt Wilson, bassist Martin Wind, guitarist and co-producer Pete McCann, and rising piano phenom Kenny Banks Jr.

The album focuses squarely on Mills’ original music and includes a spirited reworking of his tune “Bird Lives” (from For The Record), reimagined with Kenny Banks Jr. and a poignant duo performance with Matt Wilson (U.M.M.G.). McCann, Banks Jr. and Wind all emerge as standout voices, contributing to a recording that radiates swing, spirit, and beauty from start to finish.

1. This is Now (5:54)
2. Sunset STX (6:31)
3. Daddies (6:43)
4. Up to Go Down (4:54)
5. Bird Lives (duo) (4:02)
6. Exit Strategy (5:57)
7. 3 Kisses (6:47)
8. Don’t Stomp on My Dream (7:09)
9. Window Shopping (5:55)
10. Sliver of Silver (6:09)
11. Boubar (4:01)
12. U.M.M.G. (1:27)

Having received grants from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts and also having been awarded the North Carolina Arts Council Jazz Composer’s Fellowship, Mills opens his new recording on the joyfully upbeat and soaring title track This is Now and the decadent Sunset STX, and then we get brought forth the most glorious dancefloor swirls and twirls of Daddies, the pert and perky Up to Go Down, before both the emotively sculpted duet with Kenny Banks Jr. on Bird Lives and the rhythmically skedaddling Exit Strategy are upon us.

Along next is the flowingly luxuriant 3 Kisses and the impassioned Don’t Stomp on My Dream and they are in turn backed seamlessly by the melodically punctuated Window Shopping, before the set rounds out on the flourishing nature of his gently frenetic tribute to Horace Silver on Sliver of Silver, the full-bodied Boubar (a nickname for a musician and good friend he met during his travels), coming to a close on an aching yearn that threads throughout Billy Strayhorn’s short, but sweet U.M.M.G.

Musicians / Instruments:
Pete Mills — tenor saxophone
Kenny Banks Jr. — piano
Pete McCann — electric and acoustic guitar
Martin Wind — bass
Matt Wilson — drums

www.petemills.com

Pete Mills @ Instagram