October 2024 Posts Page >>>
November 2024 Posts
WestbrookJazz Notice Board

If the page is showing
incorrectly you may need to press
Control+R, Command+R or Control+F5

October 2024 Posts Page >>>
The WestbrookJazz Moving Picture Show has moved here
Remembering John and Margery Styles, founder members of Smith’s Academy.
15 November 2024
No. 87
HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLIAM BLAKE
William Blake was born in Soho on November 28 1757. To celebrate the 267th  birthday of the great artist, poet and visionary the William Blake Society is staging a zoom:
BLAKE’S BIRTHDAY BASH
November 28   19.30 - 21.00
Free. On Line.
https://blakesociety.org/product/blakes-birthday-bash-and-launch-of-vala-5/
The Mike Westbrook Band’s celebration of Blake GLAD DAY - LIVE (dvd/cd) is available from Westbrook records at the special price of £10 plus P/P
https://mikewestbrook.bandcamp.com/album/glad-day-live
William Blake painting
Blake Birthday Bash image
William Blake’s “A POISON TREE” LIVE at Toynbee Hall 2008,
Kate Westbrook, Karen Street, Billy Thompson, Steve Berry.
from the DVD/CD GLAD DAY LIVE
23 November 2024
No. 88
CITIZEN JAZZ SPEAKS
Citizen Jazz
Franpi Barriaux reviews the BAND OF BANDS album in the November issue of the French on-line jazz magazine.
Mike Westbrook BAND OF BANDS
Kate Westbrook voice Chris Biscoe sax Karen Street accordion
Pete Whyman sax Marcus Vergette bass Coach York drums
Mike Westbrook piano
In celebrating the fraternity of these British musicians, the Band of Bands septet is a major event. After several years devoted to solos and reissues, this is Mike Westbrook's first orchestral disc since lockdown. We're delighted to see that he's lost none of his verve and consummate elegance, which doesn't need to be outdone to shine, just like his comrades who've come to celebrate friendship and review the finest scores by this monument of European jazz.
On the album cover, white hair and smiles rule the roost. And with good reason: some of the musicians in this Band of Bands have been playing together for over 50 years, and have known Mike Westbrook's scores and his wife Kate Westbrook's vocals for so many decades that proximity is no longer in doubt. More likely, it's self-evident. Band of Bands is a celebration. Not an anniversary or a solemn commemoration, not a last lap or a sinister revival: to live once again, you have to have stopped. If you listen to Glad Day, with the trio that Kate and Mike have formed with Chris Biscoe for half a century, it only takes a moment to realise that this band and these musicians have never stopped being alive. Elegantly turbulent, even, needless to say, on Johnny Come Lately, which often characterises the pianist's major orchestras, when drummer Coach York has a run-in with the line of saxophones where Pete Whyman follows Biscoe.
In this track, as in Gas, Dust Stone, where double bassist Marcus Vergette shines, its the art of Mike Westbrook's arrangements that's to be appreciated, that natural simplicity that gives the impression of a suit made to measure for everyday life, with a fluidity that's staggering. For this, in addition to the horns, the composer relies on the solid rhythmic base of The Uncommon Orchestra, but also on the accordion of Karen Street, in the Westbrook orchestras since Bar Utopia, in 1996. The accordionist's relationship with Kate Westbrook's fascinating voice is marvellous, especially on the gritty Black Market.
The couple and this loyal team have never stopped telling stories, and Band of Bands revives that theatricality that always slips in between Ellington and Kurt Weill. And creates a fruitful Westbrookian dimension.
Franpi Barriaux
Citizen Jazz
https://www.citizenjazz.com

Mike Westbrook BAND OF BANDS album
Westbrook records WR 014
Proper Music distribution
Album available from Westbrook Records
WestbrookJazz Logo
Kate & Mike Westbrook
Kate and Mike Westbrook