Drama by name but epic in form with over 140 minutes of music, this double CD captures much of Towns’ fiercely committed theatre work. Towns has crafted the material into a dynamically programmed release that more than stands alone whether you know the production or not. So although much of the music reflects his special relationship with director Terry Hands, a jazzer will equally thrill to Towns’ use of multi-generations of jazz players – Lowther and Skidmore alongside Chris Montague and Rory Simmons – and to his ability to move from massive big band arrangements to the intimacy of heart stopping duets. Towns’ range of colours is boggling, from the Japanese percussion of ‘The Royal Hunt of the Sun’, to the fleeting beauty of his ‘King Lear’ theme or the Mingus thump of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest’. On a darkly complex piece like ‘The Crucible’ he can move between Salvation Army brass to discordant social paranoia without feeling forced or tricksy. It helps to have such flexible musicians: Montague sounds appropriately Rypdal-like on ‘A Doll's House’ or Frisell-like on ‘The Royal Hunt of the Sun’, Dickinson's yawing trombone is superb throughout, and when do Siegel and Hitchcock ever not deliver? Like Mike Westbrook, Towns draws on a range of musical cultures without ever compromising those roots. This music is more than worthy to accompany those greats of theatre, from Shakespeare through Ibsen to Miller. Sit back, let the curtains part and enter a world of wonder.

Jazzwise spoke to Colin Towns about the album

There's a long tradition of jazz and theatre working together.

I say to musicians you can learn from actors, how they use space and silence. Six actors on a stage needn't say a word yet can build such atmosphere. I love jazz and jazz musicians but sometimes they just keep playing until they find something. Maybe I help them with a different way of thinking.

Lester Young reckoned a soloist should know the lyrics of a song; and you want your musicians to know the play.

Yeah, I send them a synopsis of the play: what I want is for them to find out what is inside them, what they don't know is there. Often a musician will draw on what they know, be it bop or blues and that's understandable, but I try to put these colours around them that brings out something different.

One of the pleasures of this band is how it crosses generations.

I used to play with Skid's dad! And now here's Alan (Skidmore) with the likes of Rory Simmons. And Henry Lowther's been part of my life since I was a kid: I'd tape him off the radio late at night when he was with Lyn Dobson.

And the experience of those generations is very different? Yeah, technique is riding high right now, with students and academies, which is fair enough. But what ticks my box is fire and passion; I mean I love what Chris Montague's doing with Troyka, but for me it's about capturing emotion and that's about having a melody.

Do you ever wonder how an East End boy got to be writing music inspired by Shakespeare and Ibsen? I do wonder sometimes. Now I sit with the likes of Terry (Hands and Johnson) and serious academics and they seem to want what I do. Terry Hands is so down to earth, well, he used to be a bricky, and me, I'm off in my own little sound world. I learned what I could but I was tipped out of school at 15 and you went from pub to pub learning what you could. Or going through the racks at Dobell's or Ray's. I guess at first I was so scared of making a living. I'd just have to keep writing. It's fear that's driven me!

And big bands still keep going?

I was talking to Ben Cottrell the other week, and I love his intelligence and knowledge with Beats & Pieces, and Django (Bates) is amazing, great writing and piano ability. If I'm touched emotionally like I am when I still pick up Bill Evans or Coltrane then that's what it's about.