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— The Analog Vault // Essential Listening —

Originally released in 1968, Diana in the Autumn Wind captured flugelhorn player Gap Mangione during an exploratory period that blended jazz improvisation with orchestral arrangement. The album moves between lush ballads and rhythm-driven passages, showcasing Mangione’s warm horn tone and melodic sensibility.

Pieces unfold with a cinematic quality, where brass lines drift above layered instrumentation and gentle rhythmic foundations. While his brother Chuck Mangione would later gain wider recognition, Gap’s work here reveals a similarly lyrical approach to composition and tone. Diana in the Autumn Wind stands as a quietly atmospheric recording, appreciated by collectors for its understated beauty and distinctive mood. — The Analog Vault

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Gap Mangione's monumentally influential Diana In The Autumn Wind is now reissued by Be With Records.

Remarkably, this is the first ever vinyl reissue, produced with the full and extensive participation of Gap. An exceedingly rare album, it's been coveted by funk, soul, jazz and hip-hop sample fiends for decades. It's unarguably the most sought after album for J Dilla / Madlib sample collectors.

With acceptable copies of this holy grail changing hands for $400, to call this reissue "much-needed" or "long awaited" seems to understate just how vital it is. It's never even been bootlegged.

Gap's story is told in his words alongside rare photos across a sumptuously designed 2-page insert. To augment this deluxe edition further, it's all wrapped up in a beautiful, no-expense-spared luxury tip-on sleeve, as per the original hens-teeth release. And, while we're talking packaging, just take a look at that cover - a work of art in and of itself. — (via Label)

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Glorified alternately as a holy grail or a white whale for hip-hop sample heads, Diana In The Autumn Wind has now received its very first reissue. J Dilla and Madlib fans can happily play sample bingo with this 1968 album, but A Tribe Called Quest, Ghostface Killah, Kendrick Lamar, Talib Kweli and many others have drawn from it too. Bible here, Moby Dick there – the real question is: does this almost cultishly revered Gap Mangione work also convince as a coherent jazz-funk album?

Short answer: yes, absolutely. With Gap Mangione on electric piano and organ, the rhythm section of Tony Levin on bass and Steve Gadd on drums forms a very young – all in their early to mid-twenties – fiery and virtuosic trio of capable jazz musicians. On top of that, Gap’s brother Chuck conjured brass and string arrangements influenced by classical music and big-band jazz as much as by Brazilian pop and rock. That the Mangione brothers were no purists, and were quite engaged with contemporary pop music, is shown by the piano-heavy cover of "Yesterday", which a then presumably hip British group called The Beatles had released only three years earlier. Whether crisp jazz standards, the closing "Graduate Medley" of "Scarborough Fair", "The Sounds of Silence" and "Mrs. Robinson", or the apparently still unsampled "Pond With Swans", they make one thing crystal clear: Diana In The Autumn Wind can also be enjoyed wonderfully from start to finish. — (via HHV Mag)

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- First time reissued on vinyl
- Produced with full participation of Gap Mangione
- Housed in tip-on sleeve with a 2 page insert

Vinyl Tracklist
A1 Boy With Toys    
A2 Diana In The Autumn Wind    
A3 Long Hair Soulful    
A4 Yesterday    
A5 The XIth Commandment    
A6 St. Thomas    
B1 You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You    
B2 Pond With Swans    
B3 You Are My Sunshine    
B4 Free Again    
B5 Dream On Little Dreamer    
B6 Graduate Medley

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Label: Be With Records
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Deluxe Edition, Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered
Reissued: 2026 / Originally Released: 1968
Genre: Jazz, Funk / Soul
Style: Big Band, Jazz-Funk, Soul-Jazz

File under: TAV Essential Listening
File under: Jazz // Soul-Jazz / Jazz-Funk
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