"The Lord of the Rings suite, produced during the 1970s, based on the Tolkien books, is the most ambitious compositional oeuvre ever undertaken in Australian jazz. Its composer John Sangster followed a career from the late 1940s to his death in 1995 that embraced the entire historical spectrum of jazz styles from traditional to the avant-garde. One of the most complex figures in Australian music, in both temperament and musical style, nothing in the recording history of Australian jazz, and perhaps Australian music in general, matches the monumental stature of this suite, which he called his musical autobiography"--