Alto saxophonist Pete Brown has been showing up on Keynote and Savoy reissues for years, but seldom if ever has there been an entire package devoted to recordings made under his name. The Classics Chronological series has accomplished many impressive feats, but this disc deserves special attention. Brown brought excitement and sonic ballast to nearly every band he ever sat in with. His works with John Kirby and especially Frankie Newton are satisfying, but this CD contains the very heart of Brown's artistry. It opens with "Cannon Ball," a boogie-woogie from 1942 sung by Nora Lee King. This relatively rare Decca recording features Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Hamilton, and Sammy Price, the pianist with whom Brown would make outstanding music a bit further on down the road. Similarly rare and even more captivating are two extended jams recorded in Chicago in April of 1944. Brown's quartet on this date consisted of electrically amplified guitarist Jim Daddy Walker, bassist John Levy, and drummer Eddie Nicholson.

Thousands on a Raft is remembered as much for its cover as anything else – a picture of a model Titanic and a model Concorde sinking in a puddle, as rafts of toast ferry thousands of baked beans to the shore. Musically it was some good jazz-rock, with the emphasis not always on Brown's vocals and elliptical lyrics, as Jim Mullen's "Highland Song" offered an inventive, lengthy instrumental as the disc's centerpiece. The title cut has a Pink Floyd edge, surprising given Brown's predilection for jazz and blues, but it works well in the context. Guitarist Mullen is co-writer throughout, while the rhythm section of Rob Tait and Steve Glover swing rather than plod.

It has to hurt to be dumped from the band you lead, but that's what happened to Pete Brown with the Battered Ornaments – and to add insult to injury, right on the eve of a prestigious support slot opening for the Rolling Stones at London's Hyde Park in 1969. But Brown, already an acclaimed poet who'd penned many of the lyrics for Cream, dusted himself off and founded Piblokto!. This, their first album, was actually far more accessible and commercial than his work with the Battered Ornaments. The inventive title track percolates, and "High Flying Electric Bird" (which was the B-side of the band's first single) features Brown on the highly unusual rock & roll slide whistle, mimicking a birdsong.