ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: VARIATIONS

Various Artists (Concept albums & Themed compilations)

Various Genres

3.86 | 56 ratings

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I consider this album as a single and cohesive multi-movement composition and therefore I am going to review it as such.

First of all the musicians, they are all renown musical geniuses in their own instruments and genres. The main credits go to the Lloyd Webber brothers: Julian is a virtuoso cello player whose instrument is the central element of the music and Andrew the famous Broadway composer who is in charge of the composition, arrangement and some keyboards. Now the rest of the band:

Colosseum II: formed by blues guitar genius Gary Moore, Don Airey (actual Deep Purple keyboardist) one of the most talented and under-rated keyboardists in prog and the amazing jazz rhythm section of Hiseman and Mole.

The legendary Rod Argent (Argent) on keyboards.

Phil Collins another legend of prog behind the drums (Thank god!!!).

Barbara Thomson (Hiseman's wife) does a great job with the wind instruments.

+ Dave Caddick (piano), Herbie Flowers (bass) and Bill LeSage (vibes).

This is a very pompous and pretentious piece of music and that is precisely why I love it. The whole idea of turning a classical piece into rock is highly risky and when fully accomplished is quite amusing. For me it is as good as ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition and that is saying a lot. This Paganini piece was transformed to several styles from blues and hard rock to jazz, ballads and symphonic prog in a single piece of music without losing any coherence.... ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT (what would you expect from a supergroup like this?)

Total: 5!!!!!

ProgressiveAttic | 5/5 | 2010-1-18

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