Artist: Mike Westbrook

Date of Release:

Catalogue no: ENJ 70872

Label: ENJA Records

Price: £14

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Track Listing

Appearances by

Chris Biscoe, Guy Barker, Kate Westbrook

For a more detailed track listing of this 2 CD set click here

A composition for voices and jazz orchestra.

2 CD's
CD1 Tracks 1-9
CD2 Tracks 10-15

Kate Westbrook (tenor horn. piccolo. bamboo flute. voice)
Phil Minton (trumpet, voice)
Dave Plews, Guy Barker. Dick Pearce (trumpets)
Malcolm Griffiths (trombone),
Alan Sinclair, Dave Powell (tubas)
Chris Hunter. Phil Todd. Chris Biscoe (saxes)
Lindsay Cooper (bassoon, oboe, saxophone)
Brian Godding (guitar),
Georgie Born (cello),
Steve Cook (bass)
Dave Barry (drums)
Mike Westbrook (piano, tuba)

Produced by Mike Westbrook, Kate Westbrook and Fiachra Trench.

Winner of the Grand Prix du Disque, Montreux, 1982

Music composed and arranged by Mike Westbrook.
Texts by Lorea. Rimbaud. Hesse. Blake, Belli, Clare, Saarikoski and others.

Reviews

01/02/1982 Derek Jewell - The Sunday Times

"To describe music that is as imaginative, dazzlingly orchestrated, contoversial and major as is Westbook's simply as "jazz" is cruelly misleading. Dixieland buffs might might reject it. But for lovers of, say, Kenton or Gil Evans, the step beyond is easier. And treasure awaits. Apart from encompassing almost every popular music idiom (except easy pop and country), and containing ample space for improvisation, (The Cortege) features two voices - Kate Westbrook and Phil Minton - singing or decaliming in several languages. The words are by Lorca, Rimbaud, Blake and others; the themes dark, doomful, deathly.

Yet is isn't particularly pretentious; nor is the music mostly melancholy. Beautiful elegiac passages there are, certainly; think of Kenton's sax section at its soulfullly richest. But there are also spirited, surging ensembles of which Ellington or Herman would be proud. I mentioned Kenton and Gil Evans because they seem the nearest parallels (perhaps influences) of Westbrook. At times, however, he outstrips them. Evans I remembered in the military snare-drum backings of Westbrook's movements "Democratie" and "Cordoba" (so like the Evans/Miles Davis "Spanish Sketches"), and kenton even more often - the reed section in "July '79" the flashing brass of "Lenador" and "Graffitti".

To this, though, Westbrook adds more modern magic. There's a gorgeous guitar rock ballad, yearning bass guitar passages, scoring for instrument groupings like bassoon, cello and clarinet. The cello is almost Westbrook's most important instrument, always there to lead off movements and inject unique texture to ensembles.

The virtuosity of all these young multi-instrumentalists - especially Chris Biscoe on alto, soprano and baritone saxes, flute and clarinet - is staggering. You'll hear no more stirring a version of "Jerusalem" than the one featuring Minton's lusty voice. Westbrook may never get the audience he deserves. But try his work, .... the world possesses no more unusual and dramatic musical inventor".