Jonathan Glover Israelis & Palestinians

Of all the multitudinous highways and byways down which the enterprising Deep Purple collector can travel, none, perhaps, is so surprising as The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast, Purple bassist Roger Glover's first "solo" album, and – almost incidentally – one of the most delightful children's records ever made. Yes, a children's record. In 1973, Glover was approached about creating a musical adaptation of artist Alan Aldridge and poet William Plomer's book of the same name – a commission that surprised him, but which he nevertheless accepted…

The Huddersfield Choral society has one of the longest and most fruitful relationships with Handel s famous Messiah than perhaps any other chorus in the world: they first performed it in concert during their inception year of 1836, and have continued to do so annually since 1860 with concerts the world over as well as in their hometown of Huddersfield. Recorded live in concert in December 2010, this new recording combines the famous ensemble with the Northern Sinfonia and four world-class professionals, under the direction of Jane Glover CBE. The disc begins with John Wainwright s Christians Awake , a traditional addition to the Messiah programme at their concerts in Huddersfield.

Former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover's first true solo album is an ambitious concept built around the properties and powers of the four elements – earth, wind, water, and fire – with the four principle tracks dedicated to each one in turn. Recorded with the Munich Philharmonic, plus an impressive arsenal of keyboards, percussion, and wind, the sound of the album is vast, yet never so prepossessing as to leave the listener feeling at all alienated by another ham-fisted attempt to meld rock with the classics…

Roger Glover is best known as the bass player of the Hard Rock flagship Deep Purple, which he has been part of all incarnations of the band since the reunion in 1984. He joined the Lord, Paice and Blackmore, together with Ian Gillan in 1969 to form the famous MK II, Deep Purple line-up which is considered the legendary, classic line-up of the band. In the ‘70s he co-wrote and played on albums like “In Rock“, “Machine Head“ and “Fireball“, not to mention “Made in Japan“. His solo works have always been on a very high musical level, showing how much influence his bass lines and musical view are essential parts of the famous Purple sound.

Nicole Glover has been getting some well-deserved exposure recently in the context of groups like the Artemis sextet and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. But this tenor saxophonist is best appreciated on her own albums, where she fronts a saxophone-bass-drums trio. While not a common jazz format, this instrumentation has sired some classic recordings, beginning with a 1945 Commodore record by Don Byas and Slam Stewart (whose foot-tapping qualifies as "drumming"), through classics by Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson and Ornette Coleman, to contemporary trios led by Branford Marsalis and Glover's label mate, JD Allen.

As a longtime member of one of the groups that helped create heavy metal (Deep Purple, for the uninitiated), it's understandable to expect a solo outing by bassist Roger Glover to be geared toward headbangers. But as evidenced by his fifth solo album overall, 2011's If Life Was Easy, Glover has opted to follow a bluesier, roots rocky path. Which is understandable, because the whole point of doing a solo album should be to step out from under Purple's high-decibel shadow. As a case in point, a pair of tunes feature Glover's daughter Gillian Glover on vocals: "Set Your Imagination Free" and "Get Away (Can't Let You)," with the former falling in "ballad" category while the latter is a blues-rocker with blaring horn work.