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)

Mike Westbrook Orchestra ‎– The Cortège (1982, 2xCD, England)

The Mike Westbrook Orchestra's 1982 opus The Cortège, initially released as a sprawling three-disc vinyl set by Original Records (re-released on CD by Enja) and winner of that year's Grand Prix du Disque de Montreux, is an often stunning work of massive scope and an indisputable highlight of Westbrook's career. Originally commissioned by the Bracknell Jazz Festival in 1979 and subsequently performed at a number of European festivals, The Cortège is themed around the idea of a New Orleans funeral procession, from its dirges to its final exuberance, but this theme is used as a framework for excursions into territory that is pure Westbrook -- namely a marriage of creative jazz orchestra and European poetry written by Federico García Lorca, Arthur Rimbaud, Hermann Hesse, William Blake, and others. To be sure, the impassioned, theatrical, and -- to some -- even occasionally eccentric interpretations of the texts by singers Kate Westbrook and Phil Minton do not fit within what might traditionally be considered "jazz vocals"; both Westbrook and Minton draw mainly from European cabaret, musical theater, the avant-garde, and even opera. And they throw themselves into their performances, holding nothing back. They possess extraordinary range, control, and interpretive skill, and anyone open to a melding of jazz and European art music -- which honor each other here -- should find much to admire in the performances.
Moreover, Westbrook assembled a wonderful 17-piece ensemble for this project, capable of warmth and color in the ensembles and powerful, passionate solo statements. Notable among the players are musicians from both the British jazz and avant rock worlds, including bassoonist Lindsay Cooper (who takes a Zappa-ish solo complete with wah-wah on "Democratie"), cellist Georgie Born, guitarist Brian Godding (spitting fusiony sparks on the opening "It Starts Here" and ending "Erme Estuary" with atmospheric soundscapes), electric bassist Steve Cook, and saxophonist Chris Biscoe (pushing beyond the waltz of "Knivshult/Ash Wednesday" and taking the rhythm section with him). If you think The Cortège's band photos snapped by Kate Westbrook in a fancy hotel ballroom provide evidence that this project might be overly polite, listen to the suitably raucous treatment given to John Clare's celebration of ale-drinking companionship The Toper's Rant ("And we'll sit it in spite of the weather/Till we tumble dead drunk on the plain/When the morning shall find us together/All willing to stand it again") in "A Hearth Burns," with Minton, Kate Westbrook, and Born pumping out the vocal chorus with abandon while the horns and reeds wail around them (followed by a blues-rockin' feature for Godding). And yes, "A Hearth Burns" segues into the genuinely weird "Une Vie," with a short text by Finnish poet Pentti Saarikoski vehemently declaimed by Minton over Cook's Hugh Hopper-esque fuzz bass -- it's as bizarre as Ivor Cutler on Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom. The Cortège might be too sprawling for a first investigation of Westbrook, but it warrants consideration as the centerpiece of any Westbrook collection.