The Liberation Music Orchestra make a welcome reappearance on record. Two tracks – ‘Blue in Green’ and ‘Song for the Whales’ – were recorded with Haden at the helm at the 2011 Middelheim Jazz Festival in Antwerp. At the time his plan was to write material for an album protesting at environmental damage. Unfortunately, his health intervened, culminating in his death in July 2014. His wife and manager Ruth Cameron was determined to see the project through, turning to Carla Bley to provide further charts, who duly obliged with the title track, ‘Silent Spring’ and ‘Utviklingssang’ with her husband Steve Swallow in Haden's stead on electric bass. What is interesting is how the ensemble gradually became better behaved since 1969's rough and raw Liberation Music Orchestra through The Ballad of the Fallen (1983), Dream Keeper (1990), Not In Our Name (2005) and The Montreal Tapes (1999), culminating in the smooth ensemble textures and measured solos of Time/Life. Yet this latest version of the Liberation Music Orchestra is not without the distinct imprimatur of its predecessors, thanks to Bley's arrangements and compositions that are a common thread running through the band's repertoire since its first album. Two Bley pieces, ‘Silent Spring’ and ‘Utviklingssang,’ have history, the former featured on Gary Burton's Genuine Tong Funeral from the 1960s, while the latter first featured on her own album Social Studies from 1981. But the Liberation Music Orchestra claim them as their own, with ‘Time/Life’ a highlight of the tracks without Haden, with the two live tracks – ‘Blue in Green’ and ‘Song for the Whales’ – marking a perfect valedictory statement for one of jazz's great ensembles.