A Grande Familia is Portuguese for 'The Big Family', and this unusual project is definitely a family affair.

Guitarist and composer Billy Marrows wrote this suite of music for his mother during her battle with cancer, and recorded it with an ensemble comprised of close musical friends and members of his extended family. The mood is appropriately intimate - Greg Sanders does sterling work powering things along wth a single shaker, but there is no other percussion, and while there are some effective improvised solo passages from Willaims and Soper in particular, all the focus is on Marrow’s skills as an arranger. His guitar and Jonas Mbanu’s bass anchor each track, providing a harmonic and rhythmic scaffold upon which he drapes pastel shaded swags of woodwinds, strings and hushed brass.

Marrow’s unusual and edgy compositional sense means that the results are never overly sweet – the title track is a subtle bossa whose spacious modernist orchestral interventions echo the work of of Claus Ogerman with Joao Gilberto: ‘Lambs’ has a sprightly rhythmic quirkiness that is reminiscent of Frank Zappa’s small orchestra work: ‘February’ is a duet for guitar and viola that alternates easily between lyrical and abstract: ‘L’Héroïsme’ uses thick chording and piano under blissfully rising saxophone for a suitably rousing, optimistic finale.

The full band tracks are interspersed with solo guitar pieces that condense Marrow’s contrasting preoccupation with melodic directness and harmonic and rhythmic ingenuity. All proceeds go to the World Child Cancer charity which is an excellent reason for purchase, but the music is reward enough.