Leslie Jones

Leslie Jones (1905-1982) is hardly a household name in the world of classical music. But he was hugely important in developing the way we listen to and appreciate music today. His neglect in recent years is probably due to the fact that he had a somewhat unorthordox career – a lawyer who dedicated himself to professional music making in his retirement. In the 1960s, he established The Little Orchestra of London which consisted of top London freelance players. Jones was at the forefront of the movement to reduce the size of orchestras for performances of 18th and 19th century music and an early adopter of period performance practice, long before it became part of the mainstream several decades later. His LP recordings were illuminating in their interpretation of familiar repertoire.

After directing two of the most extraordinary movies of the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, American artist Terrence Malick disappeared from the film world for twenty years, only to resurface in 1998 with this visionary adaptation of James Jones’s 1962 novel about the World War II battle for Guadalcanal. A big-budget, spectacularly mounted epic, The Thin Red Line is also one of the most deeply philosophical films ever released by a major Hollywood studio, a thought-provoking meditation on man, nature, and violence. Featuring a cast of contemporary cinema’s finest actors—Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, and Woody Harrelson among them—The Thin Red Line is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the experience of combat that ranks as one of the greatest war films ever produced.

Soundcheck is the sixteenth solo album by legendary rock guitarist Leslie West. Leslie West first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 as the guitarist and singer in the groundbreaking rock band Mountain. West's wholly unique sound, distinguished by beautifully melodic phrasing, his slow, wide vibrato, and a crushing guitar tone set the standard in the late sixties and early seventies for blues-rock guitar playing of the highest order. Leslie lays down some of his most inspired musical magic to date with the assistance of true rock royalty: the renown British guitarist Peter Frampton and Brian may, ex-Jeff Beck keyboard virtuoso Max Middleton, vocalist extraordinaire Bonnie Bramlett and the late great Cream bassist and longtime friend of Leslie's, Jack Bruce. Soundcheck is co-produced and engineered by West's collaborator Mike 'Meta' Goldberg, who he shared 'helped me get my sound down on 'tape' as they use to say, and did an amazing job as he always does.'