If Billy Cobham's album "The Art Of Three" was still "backward looking forward", with the old stars Ron Carter and Kenny Barron and a standards program, "The Art Of Five" goes even more boldly forward The younger guard accompanies Billy this time around. These include trumpet prodigy Guy Barker, pianists Eric Reed and Julian Joseph (Reed on 2 tracks, Joseph on all others) or alto saxophonist Donald Harrison. Moreover, except for Irving Berlin's "Change Partners", the program consists exclusively of the musicians' own compositions. Recording and sound are acoustic throughout. The warmth emanating from the musicians cannot be captured better by any studio in the world than by Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios. In this respect, it is precisely this studio that is also to blame for the outstanding realization of what Billy Cobham had set out to do for "The Art Of Five": to embed the claim of innovation in an authentic form of jazz.