"I first met Pat Moran in NY, when at that time I had a young female pianist (Terry Pollard) who wasn’t called at that time as the cliché went good for a girl she was better than most of the male piano players. Pat was younger than Terry and when I first heard her she had not played with the great musicians those days but I knew that she had the makings of another great pianist that once again the cliche good for a girl didn’t pertain to Pat.

About 10 years later I was playing in Chicago and the rhythm section I was playing with wasn’t making me have fun playing and by mutual agreement they all left. I still had about 12 weeks left on this tour. Out of nowhere I went into some club and Pat was playing a one night Gig. This was a different pianist that I heard 10 years ago. Pat had matured into becoming a very good jazz player. She has everything I was looking for that I usually have in my Quartet. I asked her to join the group and as they say a bit of history was made for her. Pat came out to California with her 3 or 4 year old son and moved into my house with my ex wife and me. Besides playing with my Quartet I used her in My Dream Band and for Pat that opened a new chapter in her life for she got to play with the best musicians on the West Coast and gained lots of respect from all the musicians in the Dream Band plus any Musician that came in to hear the band.

Before she joined the band we did these two CD’s and with Pat and the other musicians on the date it was a breeze. Recording live has always been my favorite and how I record is to play 3 nights so that everybody can learn the arrangements I write and not get uptight about having to keep your eyes on the music paper, and then record. That was recorded at Shelly’s Manne-Hole a famous jazz club owned by the great drummer Shelly Manne. 'Straight Ahead' was the easiest to record because we went from playing 6 weeks in Las Vegas into a studio in Los Angeles the next day and knocked the whole CD out in 2 days of recording. Pat and I have the same out there sense of humor so everything we did always called for a lot of laughs whether it’s in the studio or in a club. I am still very much in touch with Pat and it’s always fun to reminisce with Pat because it always winds up with a laugh."   

—Terry Gibbs, February 2020 (From the inside liner notes of FSRCD 991)