[1] Author Ted Gioia calls the tune "a querulous hard-bop chart that...sounds almost painfully sophisticated".
[1] Murphy told John Watson in an interview that when he first arrived in the UK in 1964, the Oliver Nelson record was getting a lot of play and the song "Stolen Moments" stuck with him.
He said, "I like what the lyrics say about two people snatching time to be together, not giving a damn about what the rest of the world says.’’[2] He sang the song at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club.
[4] The tune would be featured on The Manhattan Transfer's 1979 release Extensions with lyrics by Jon Hendricks, which would win the 1981 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance.
Murphy's recording of "Stolen Moments" received a lot of airplay in the US and became a favorite in his live performances.
"I guess there's some kind of dance connection in my singing,'' Murphy said, "because I was discovered by Sammy Davis Jr., one of the world's greatest tap dancers''.
An extended 13 minute version of "Stolen Moments" with two scat solos is included on the live set Just Jazz from 1993 with the Karlheinz Miklin Quartet from a concert in Graz, Austria.
Three versions of the song are also prominently featured later in Murphy's career on his album Love is What Stays with Till Brönner in 2007.
Jack Gobbetti is on percussion, and he makes a later appearance with Murphy on the 2017 HighNote release Wild and Free: Live at the Keystone Korner from a 1980 concert.
The remainder of the band includes Smith Dobson on piano, Jim Nichols on guitar, Mark Levine on trombone, and Warren Gale on trumpet.
Murphy records "Waters of March" by Antônio Carlos Jobim on this release and his version is considered definitive by some critics.
Jones says, "His extraordinary verbal facility is on show in this tricky all-vocal/no solos Art Farmer/Annie Ross vocalese number, its big range requiring flips into falsetto".
Generally speaking, albums that are granted four or more stars constitute the best introductions to an artist's work for listeners who are curious).
[8] The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music gives the album 3 stars (meaning, good, by the artist's usual standards and therefore recommended.
[10] Scott Yanow writes, "One of singer Mark Murphy's most famous records, this album finds him at the peak of his powers.
[10] In his own book The Jazz Singers: The Ultimate Guide, Yanow lists the album as one of the best individual Muse sets, and writes of Murphy, "A brilliant vocal innovator, Mark Murphy can turn a song inside out in his improvisations, jumping between falsetto and low bass notes, or he can treat a ballad with real sensitivity.
Reilly credits the supporting musicians, "in particular Richie Cole, whose alto sax is almost Murphy's co-star here".