Night & Day Big Band

Night & Day Big Band

Night and Day: Big-Band is an album by the American band Chicago, their twenty-second album overall, released in 1995. It marked the band's abandonment of Top 40 material for a more thematic project, the focus here being classic big band and swing music.

Following the commercial failure of 1991's Twenty 1, Chicago recorded Stone of Sisyphus in 1993 and 1994—a dramatic return to the old days of artistic freedom without trying to have a hit single—which was rejected by Reprise Records. (It was eventually released by Rhino Records in 2008.) In response, Chicago left the label and started up their own imprint, Chicago Records, to re-distribute their recently-acquired Columbia Records output and, presumably, to release their future material. Despite this, their new "big band" project (in many ways, the root of Chicago's original sound) would be carried by Giant Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music, who also distributes Reprise.

Landing noted producer Bruce Fairbairn to helm the project, Chicago recorded Night & Day Big Band in late 1994/early 1995 and released it that May. Although Bruce Gaitsch played guitar on the sessions, the guitar slot would eventually be filled that year by Keith Howland, who remains Chicago's present guitarist. As a side note, Joe Perry of Aerosmith was brought in to add a solo to "Blues in the Night."

The album reached #90 in the US.