Really, why should this music be called avant-garde? Should a band as gloriously fun as Phillip Johnston's Big Trouble really be given a stylistic label equated by many with either difficult art music or deadly serious free jazz? Yes, in the '90s jazz world, the enormously engaging saxophonist/composer and his band of accomplished musical pranksters definitely fell on the avant side of things, but that was more a reflection of the sorry state of the mainstream, in comparison to which, of course, any era's avant-garde is defined. In a rational world, Johnston's first post-Microscopic Septet project would be seen as appealing to a very broad audience segment – say, those with ears on the sides of their heads.
The limited edition album One Fine Day was originally recorded in 1980 at Chipping Norton Studios and was produced by Rea himself…
Winwood went solo in 1974, building himself his own personal recording studio on his fifty-acre farm in Gloucestershire. He seemed almost in retirement as the years passed, but instead he was working hard on new material, laying down every track himself at his studio and accepting help only with an occasional lyric. In 1977 he released Steve Winwood to unenthusiastic sales. Winwood told People that his first solo effort "got buried," and when time came to cut the next album "it was a make-or-break situation. If it hadn’t been for Arc of a Diver, I might be a taxi driver."