Redcola Trailer Giant

History will undoubtedly enshrine this disc as a watershed the likes of which may never truly be appreciated. Giant Steps bore the double-edged sword of furthering the cause of the music as well as delivering it to an increasingly mainstream audience. Although this was John Coltrane's debut for Atlantic, he was concurrently performing and recording with Miles Davis. Within the space of less than three weeks, Coltrane would complete his work with Davis and company on another genre-defining disc, Kind of Blue, before commencing his efforts on this one. Coltrane (tenor sax) is flanked by essentially two different trios. Recording commenced in early May of 1959 with a pair of sessions that featured Tommy Flanagan (piano) and Art Taylor (drums), as well as Paul Chambers - who was the only bandmember other than Coltrane to have performed on every date…

Mellow Records' Gentle Giant tribute album, Giant for a Life, is something of a mixed bag. Containing everything from attempts at note-perfect copies (most of them) to imaginative rearrangements (Raymond Benson's solo piano take on Think Of Me With Kindness, for example). Some of the bands are not too well known, but all are talented. Nice tribute but the originals are still better!

Gentle Giant is maybe the major prog band with only a few good quality live recordings, the official Playing The Fool, the BBC recordings, King Biscuit and a few isolated tracks on Under Construction. The Gentle Giant bootlegs, a bigger part now accesible as official releases are mostly medium to bad quality in terms of sound…

Edge of Twilight is a thorough overview of Gentle Giant's years at Vertigo Records, containing nearly every highlight from each of their early records. As a result, it's not only a perfect introduction to the strange, provocative world of Gentle Giant, it could be all the Gentle Giant most prog-rock fans need.