The First Minute of a New Day is an album by American vocalist Gil Scott-Heron, keyboardist Brian Jackson, and the Midnight Band—an eight-piece musical ensemble.

[5] The First Minute of a New Day served as Jackson's and Scott-Heron's debut for the Arista label and featured the eight-piece Midnight Band.

[13] Even though Scott-Heron's previous albums, in specific Pieces of a Man and Winter in America, featured singles, they did not chart.

[6] Tim Sheridan of Allmusic called it "solid, decidedly left-of-center jazz-R&B" and went on to write: This output, with the opening meditation of "Offering" and the right-on "Ain't No Such Thing as Superman," solidifies Heron's place in the pantheon of jazz poets.

[15] Robert Christgau of the Village Voice noted that "the free-jazz-gone-populist band generates so much rhythmic energy that it carries over the weak spots".