No-Man's Tim Bowness is part of this project along with Pendragon's Fudge Smith on drums. Steven Wilson mixed a couple of tracks. This is spacey, atmospheric music with lots of sax and mellotron.
Take 60's/70's influences such as early Genesis, early Floyd, Soft Machine and VDGG and mix them with Rain Tree Crow and King Crimson then throw in some Faust and Greg Lake for good measure. The album moves from delicately sung ballads that are beautiful in the extreme to music that takes a lot of work to gain the benefit from it.

The tuba, alas, has a reputation of being the least cool and most cumbersome of the family of brass instruments - until the album Tuba Tuba, that is. A quartet of two tubas, accordion, and drums, Tuba is the vehicle for American Dave Bargeron (Blood Sweat & Tears, many big bands) and Michel Godard (French National Orchestra, Ray Anderson). Each fellow endows his tuba with exhilarating swing, grace, and (of course) humor on classics by Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

This is the album where Jeff Lynne finally found the sound he'd wanted since co-founding Electric Light Orchestra three years earlier. Up to this point, most of the group's music had been self-contained – Lynne, Richard Tandy, et al., providing whatever was needed, vocally or instrumentally, even if it meant overdubbing their work layer upon layer. Lynne saw the limitations of this process, however, and opted for the presence of an orchestra – it was only 30 pieces, but the result was a much richer musical palette than the group had ever had to work with, and their most ambitious and successful record up to that time.

Fresh Cream represents so many different firsts, it's difficult to keep count. Cream, of course, was the first supergroup, but their first album not only gave birth to the power trio, it also was instrumental in the birth of heavy metal and the birth of jam rock…

Hugely positive and sometimes crushingly sentimental, Germany's Mark 'Oh (Marko Albrecht) is part of a long line of German musicians who threw down the mantle of rock amateurism in order to embrace his country's post-rave mainstream dance. After disbanding his first guitar outfit, Line Up, 'Oh began as a DJ in 1990 and worked his way up to production with the 1993 limited release of "Randy – Never Stop That Feeling," a cheery, helium-sampled single that found its way to the top of Germany's charts for half a year after its re-release. Subsequent singles furthered 'Oh's light Super Mario Brothers trance style and his three albums – 1995's Never Stop That Feeling, 1996's Magic Power, and 1999's Rebirth – showed an increase in guest appearances and unusual covers, such as reworkings of Visage's "Fade to Grey" and Nick Kamen's "I Promised Myself." A premature Best Of collection was released in 2001.

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. They were among the most controversial, influential and unique rock acts of the 1960s and beyond, mostly because of Morrison's wild, poetic lyrics and charismatic but unpredictable stage persona. The Doors has been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by many magazines, including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold and platinum LPs. The Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.

Although primarily remembered as a country music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of multiple induction in the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame…

Buxtehude’s cantata cycle, Membra Jesu Nostri, is a unique work. Based on texts from a medieval Latin hymn, ‘Salve mundi salutare’, the cycle contains seven cantatas each dedicated to a different part of Christ’s crucified body. The texts are based on the concept of an observer contemplating Christ’s body on the cross starting with his feet and moving up to his knees, hands, side, breast, heart and finally his head. Buxtehude plays cleverly with musical colours and textures and changes the mixture of voices and instruments to dramatic effect as the work develops.

Eight of the selections on this interesting CD feature Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn on pianos, with backup work by either Wendell Marshall or Joe Shulman on bass plus an unidentified drummer on a few numbers. Among the more notable selections are "Cotton Tail," "C Jam Blues," "Johnny Come Lately," and particularly a wild version of "Tonk." The latter's big-band selections include the initial studio recording of "The Tattooed Bride" and a lengthy exploration (utilizing Yvonne Lanauze's wordless vocals) of "Mood Indigo."

Collectors of recordings by piano great Art Tatum are frustrated by the many haphazard, poorly documented, and often incomplete collections of his work; this four-CD set by the English label Definitive attempts to collect all of his known recordings for Decca, but there are a few surprising twists. Tatum recorded many of his piano solos with several different takes, so as many as 23 alternate takes remain unissued (and are most likely either lost or unusable) according to Tatum discographer Arnold Laubich. But this is made up by the fact that all of his sessions with singer Adelaide Hall for Brunswick (including four previously unissued alternate takes, one of whose existence was not previously known) and every song he waxed with blues singer Joe Turner are present…

His recording career as a leader in the United States lasted for about two years, from 1944-46. In the autumn of 1946 Don Byas left for Europe touring with the Don Redman Band; essentially, from that point on he simply stayed in Europe until his death in 1972. Considering the time period, and the extent of his talent, expatriation was a doubtful career move if he was concerned with his place in the contemporary jazz scene and ultimately his place in jazz history.
This four disc set, Don Byas: Complete American Small Group Recordings, documents Byas’ recordings as a leader prior to his emigration, with one disc documenting his work as a sideman in a variety of bands. Although he was later to record extensively in Europe, Byas should be established as a major tenor saxophonist based on this four disc set alone.

This high-fidelity live concert recording captures bassist Dominic Duval's quintet at the height of its powers. Each of the fully improvised tracks is simply entitled "Cries & Whispers," and numbered chronologically. To be sure, three strings and two reeds are unusual instrumentation, and in lesser hands the results might have been less focused…

A solid bop-based pianist, Eddie Higgins has never become a major name, but he has been well-respected by his fellow musicians for decades…