So, a friend of mine recently introduced me to Cowboy Bebop. For those of you who don't know, it's an anime series. There were 26 half-hour episodes. Now, although the show is pretty good, it doesn't compare to the music.

The music is composed and writted by Yoko Kanno. She's done tons of anime, including Macross Plus and Escaflowne. She's VERY talented.

What's truly amazing about Cowboy Bebop is the diversity of all the songs. She touches almost every major genre of music. What's even more amazing is how well it sounds. The main genre (which is also the best sounding) is jazz bebop.

To perform the songs, Yoko gathered a group of amazing musicians together into a band called The Seatbelts. Although I'm not familiar with NY avant garde jazz, my friend says it's quite an all-star group. You can find a list of the musicians here.

I can't stress enough how amazing the music is. If you haven't heard it, you can find Real Audio versions of the first four albums here.

Lastly, if you're interested in seeing the series, there's a 6 DVD set that was released in the US by Bandai. You can find it at most video stores, and you may even find it at the right video rental store.

Right now, in the US, that series happens to play regularly on Cartoon Network, as part of a multi-show program they have called Adult Swim, and possibly also during Toonami, as was done before.

I have watched the show here and there and it's ok. But I think I agree with you about the music. Very well done; very talented musicians.