Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974) was a jazz pianist and band leader, one of the big names in the history of the genre, and one of the USA's greatest popular composers.
He hailed from a middle-class family in Washington, DC, and learned piano both from lessons and from imitating the ragtime pianists in the community. After attaining modest success in DC as a pianist and jazz band leader, Duke sought the big time by taking his band to New York City, the center of the music world and the most glamorous scene of The Roaring Twenties. He first played in the Kentucky Club, then the Cotton Club, honing his songwriting chops and gathering more musicians around him until he was no longer leading a band but an orchestra. During the 1930s and 1940s, as big-band swing grew in popularity throughout the US and the world, Duke's jazz orchestra became renowned as one of the best.

Son orchestre big band est un des plus réputés de l'histoire du jazz, avec ceux de Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman comprenant des musiciens qui sont parfois considérés, tout autant que lui, comme des maîtres de cette musique et virtuoses de leurs instruments.

Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings is a four-CD box set by the Police, containing all five of their studio albums in chronological order, as well as non-album singles, non-album B-sides, and tracks from various compilation albums and the Brimstone & Treacle soundtrack (1982). The box set also comes with a 68-page booklet.

On the Threshold of a Dream is the fourth album by the Moody Blues, released in April 1969 on the Deram label. The album reached the top of the album charts, the group's first No. 1 album in the UK. According to guitarist Justin Hayward, "I think Threshold is the defining album for the Moody Blues. And it's the one in the '60's that you would find in people's homes when you went, they would have that album."

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is the seventh album by The Moody Blues, released in 1971. The album reached No. 1 on the British album chart, in addition to a three-week stay at No. 2 in the United States, and produced one top-40 single, "The Story in Your Eyes".