Editing Jon Lord (section)

==As a composer==
Lord continued to focus on his classical aspirations alongside his Deep Purple career. The [[BBC]], buoyed by the success of the Concerto, commissioned him to write another piece and the resulting "Gemini Suite" was performed by Deep Purple and the Light Music Society under [[Malcolm Arnold]] at the [[Royal Festival Hall]] in September 1970, and then in [[Munich]] with the [[Munich Chamber Orchestra|Kammerorchester]] conducted by [[Eberhard Schoener]] in January 1972. It then became the basis for Lord's first solo album, ''[[Gemini Suite]]'', released in November 1972, with vocals by [[Yvonne Elliman]] and [[Tony Ashton]] and with the [[London Symphony Orchestra]] backing a band that included [[Albert Lee]] on guitar.

Lord's collaboration with the highly experimental and supportive Schoener resulted in a second live performance of the Suite in late 1973 and a new Lord album with Schoener, entitled ''[[Windows (Jon Lord album)|Windows]]'', in 1974. It proved to be Lord's most experimental work and was released to mixed reactions. However, the dalliances with [[J. S. Bach|Bach]] on ''Windows'' and the pleasure of collaborating with Schoener resulted in perhaps Lord's most confident solo work and perhaps his strongest orchestral album, ''[[Sarabande (album)|Sarabande]]'', recorded in Germany in September 1975 with the [[Philharmonia Hungarica]] conducted by Schoener. Composed of eight pieces (from the opening sweep of Fantasia to the Finale), at least five pieces form the typical construction of a baroque dance suite. The key pieces ([[Sarabande]], [[Gigue]], [[Bouree]], [[Pavane]] and [[Capriccio (music)|Caprice]]) feature rich orchestration complemented sometimes by the interpolation of rock themes, played by a session band comprising [[Pete York]], [[Mark Nauseef]] and [[Andy Summers]], with organ and synthesizers played by Lord.

In March 1974, Lord and Paice had collaborated with friend [[Tony Ashton]] on ''[[First of the Big Bands]]'', credited to 'Tony Ashton & Jon Lord' and featuring a rich array of session talent, including [[Carmine Appice]], Ian Paice, [[Peter Frampton]] and [[Pink Floyd]] saxophonist/sessioner, [[Dick Parry]]. They performed much of the set live at the [[London Palladium]] in September 1974.

This formed the basis of Lord's first post-Deep Purple project [[Paice Ashton Lord]], which lasted only a year and spawned a single album, ''[[Malice in Wonderland (Paice Ashton Lord album)|Malice in Wonderland]]'' in 1977, recorded at [[Musicland Studios]] at the Arabella Hotel in Munich. A second album was begun but subsequently abandoned. He created an informal group of friends and collaborators including Ashton, Paice, [[Bernie Marsden]], [[Boz Burrell]] and later, Bad Company's [[Mick Ralphs]], [[Simon Kirke]] and others. Over the same period, Lord guested on albums by [[Maggie Bell]], [[Nazareth (band)|Nazareth]] and even folk artist [[Richard Digance]]. 

Lord also guested as one of several keyboard players on the live performance of David Bedford's ''The Odyssey''. The composer and musician (''The Orchestral Tubular Bells'' (1975), ''Star's End'' (1974), ''The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner'' (1975)), performed a live concert of a musical version of Homer's play, at the Royal Albert Hall on 25 January 1977. [[Andy Summers]], who found fame in [[The Police]] played guitar on The Odyssey studio recording and asked Lord to be one of the keyboard players for this concert. The set began with a cut down live version of ''Sarabande'', on which Summers had played on the studio recording session in September 1975. 

Eager to pay off a huge tax bill upon his return the UK in the late-1970s (Purple's excesses included their own tour jet and a home Lord rented in Malibu from actress [[Ann-Margret]] and where he wrote the ''Sarabande'' album), Lord joined former Deep Purple band member [[David Coverdale]]'s new band, [[Whitesnake]] in August 1978 (Ian Paice joined them in 1980 and stayed until 1982).