Mike Mainieri's tribute to contemporary American composers. Five Stars in Downbeat.

The wedding of jazz and contemporary compostion, these presumably opposing strains, is not a marriage of convenience but rather one of thorny love, that is, committed struggle. The offspring of that marriage, as represented by the musical personages Mike Mainieri, Joe Lovano, Eddie Gomez and Peter Erskine, as well as the majority of accomplished, enduring American composers of the past one hundred years-at least by the evidence of the provocative, satisfying entries in An American Diary-advance the strongest, most attractive attributes of both lines. Howard Mandel 1994