John Sangster's The Lord of the Rings Vols. 1-3

A study of John Sangster''s jazz suite The Lord of the Rings contextualized with biographical and cultural studies of the composer in the 1970s.In three volumes and more than six LP recordings The Lord of the Rings suite produced during the 1970s based on the Tolkien books is the most ambitious stylistically and emotionally wide-ranging compositional oeuvre ever undertaken in Australian jazz. Its composer (and one of its performers) John Sangster embraced the historical spectrum of jazz styles from traditional to the avant-garde through performance recording and film/TV music. Sangster whose career spanned from the late 1940s until his death in 1995 was one of the most complex figures in Australian music. In both temperament and musical style he ranged from light to darkness idolized by his colleagues yet susceptible to (literally) homicidal rage. Nothing in the recording history of Australian jazz and perhaps Australian music in general matches the monumental stature of these volumes which he called his musical autobiography.