Mike Westbrook Orchestra Featuring John Surman – Citadel / Room 315 (1975, LP, England)

Tracklkist:

A1 Overture

A2 Construction

A3 Pistache

A4 View From The Drawbridge

A5 Love And Understanding

B6 Tender Love

B7 Bebop De Rigueur

B8 Pastorale

B9 Sleepwalker Awaking In Sunlight

B10 Outgoing Song

B11 Finale

Musicians:

Composed By, Arranged By – Mike Westbrook

Alto Saxophone, Flute, Bass Clarinet – Mike Page

Baritone Saxophone, Flute – John Warren

Baritone Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Bass Clarinet – John Surman

Bass Trombone – Alf Reece, Geoff Perkins

Bass, Bass Guitar – Chris Laurence

Drums – Alan Jackson

Electric Piano – Dave MacRae, Mike Westbrook

Guitar – Brian Godding

Percussion – John Mitchell

Piano – Dave MacRae

Tenor Saxophone, Flute – John Holbrooke

Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Clarinet – Alan Wakeman

Trombone – Malcolm Griffiths

Trombone, Euphonium – Paul Rutherford

Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Derek Healey, Henry Lowther, Kenny Wheeler, Nigel Carter

Note

Commisioned by Swedish Radio and first performed in Stockholm in March 1974 by the Swedish Radio Jazz Group with soloist John Surman. Performed by the Mike Westbrook Orchestra on its British tour in September and October 1974.

Recorded at Phonogram Studios, London, March 21/22 1975

This magnificent album marks a pivotal point in the career of pianist / composer Mike Westbrook, a transition between the first and the second phases of his monumental life’s achievement. Since it is a suite composed for and performed by a large ensemble (19 musicians in this case), it continues the pioneering work by Westbrook as a composer of large scale orchestral music and closes the cycle which started with the debut “Celebration” and continued with “Release”, “Marching Song”, “Love Songs” and “Metropolis”. In between “Metropolis” and “Citadel / Room 315” Westbrook ventured into Jazz-Rock Fusion with the group Solid Gold Cadillac, returning to Jazz with the new suite, which was commissioned by the Swedish Radio Jazz Group with John Surman as a guest soloist. It was first performed and recorded in 1974, but for various reasons the recording was not released, so Westbrook decided to record it with a British lineup, following several performances in UK a year later. As usual in his case, he managed to assemble the best Jazz players on the British Jazz scene to participate in the recording, including John Surman as the main soloist on baritone and soprano saxophone, with Henry Lowther and Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, Dave MacRae on piano, Brian Godding on guitar, Chris Lawrence on bass and Allan Jackson on drums and many others. The music is of course brilliant, as always, but surprisingly more melodic and accessible than most of his earlier works, with clear “winks” towards the work of Duke Ellington. Superbly arranged and performed, this is an epic achievement, sadly one of the last great Jazz works of such scale, as the climate in Britain was about to change very soon and the magnificent Golden Decade was facing an inevitable comedown. Westbrook was of course to continue his extraordinary work as a composer, but his albums will be gradually released on small independent labels and sell meagerly. Well, we still have this essential recording to re-visit any time we feel a need to refill out batteries with some highly charged musical delight. Essential! (jazzis)