With Untucked in Hannover, Tom Rainey's top-notch quintet Obbligato presents a third album of a collection of jazz standards – with Jacob Sacks on piano replacing regular pianist Kris Davis for this live recording. Wonderful jazz tunes like Stella by Starlight or I Fall in Love Too Easily are interpreted in an open dialogue with stunning joy of playing and improvisation. And though standards are the modus operandi of Obbligato, their approach is intended to be less conventional, less reverential and certainly less solo-centric than many other bands that tack- les with Standards. Obbligato sometimes plays with the essences of famous jazz standards in an implied way, sometimes in a teasing and mysterious way, but always in a tantalizing way. "Close your eyes, imagine sitting in the front row of your favorite jazz club, sit back and enjoy Obbligato playing pieces from the Great American Songbook in a way you've never heard them before: and by one of the most inventive and inspiring live bands of the last decade," writes Laurence Donohue-Greene in the liner notes.