Mike Westbrook
Encyclopedia
Michael John David 'Mike' Westbrook (born 21 March 1936 in High Wycombe
) is an English
jazz
pianist
, composer
, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces.
. After a spell in Accountancy and the National Service (some of it posted to Germany) he went to art school, studying painting, in Plymouth
where he also began his first bands in 1958, soon joined by such musicians as John Surman
, Lou Gare
and Keith Rowe
.
After moving to London in 1962 Westbrook led numerous bands, large and small, and played regularly at the Old Place
and the Little Theatre Club. Together with Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath
, Westbrook shared the role of House Band at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
.
He became a key figure in the development of British Jazz
, producing several big band records with the newly formed Mike Westbrook Concert Band between 1967 and 1969 for the Deram label, featuring such musicians as Surman, Mike Osborne
and Harry Miller
. The band varied in size from 10 to 26 musicians.
In 1968 his band made their international debut at the Montreux Festival with Malcolm Griffiths, Alan Jackson
, Harry Miller, Mike Osborne and John Surman
The 1970s saw a wide range of different projects.
Cosmic Circus, jointly founded with John Fox
specialized in large scale, one-off high technology shows involving high-divers, tight-rope, carnival processions and more. It was part of Earthrise Tour in the UK (May 1970 to October 1971). This included also singer/vocalist Norma Winstone
who performed on several of the band's albums at the time.
Adrian Mitchell
drew Mike Westbrook in for his musical "Tyger" on the life of William Blake
for the Royal National Theatre
. This would become a major influence on Mike Westbrook's work (see paragraph on later work below).
In 1972/73 he also worked in the context of his jazz-rock band Solid Gold Cadillac
. The most consequential effect of this was the participation of Phil Minton
. His unmistakable voice would feature in many of Westbrook's later projects. A live performance of Solid Gold Cadillac (at the Paris Theatre in London) has been repeatedly broadcast by BBC Radio 6 between 2002 and 2007.
In March 1977 the Mike Westbrook Brass Band, avant-rock group Henry Cow
and folk singer Frankie Armstrong
merged to form The Orckestra
. The ensemble performed in London and several cities in Europe, their last concert being in Bordeaux
, France in May 1978.
's Tyger a celebration of William Blake
, staged by the Royal National Theatre
in 1971. This became a vehicle for his Brass Band of the 70's and 80's and the LP 'The Westbrook Blake - Bright As Fire' followed on in 1980. A revised and expanded version of the work was re-recorded in 1997 and named 'Glad Day'. The Brass Band also recorded 'Mama Chicago' described as a Jazz Cabaret which featured the voices of Phil Minton
and Kate Westbrook. The album was released on CD for the first time in 2007.
Further works of note include 'On Duke's Birthday' which was dedicated to the memory of Duke Ellington
, which was reissued on CD in the summer of 2007, 'Big Band Rossini' which was featured in the 1992 BBC Proms and (2002), commissioned by BBC Radio 3
, which brings together jazz and classical musicians in the New Westbrook Orchestra. Mike was awarded an OBE
in 1988, and in 2004 the University of Plymouth
awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Music.
He continues to produce jazz scores, many for the theatre
with his wife, the singer/songwriter Kate Westbrook
. He was featured in the 2003 BBC
documentary, Jazz Britannia.
Mike's current projects include ART WOLF inspired by the life and work of the Alpine painter Caspar Wolf
. In this Kate & Mike Westbrook are joined by saxophonists Pete Whyman & Chris Biscoe
. In a more recent project the couple have been joined by four leading Devon
musicians to form the Village Band. The acoustic brass band perform many jazz standards and an original piece, the Waxeywork Show, with music written by Mike and text by Kate. The band perform mainly in the Devon and Cornwall
area and in 2006 they performed several times at the London Jazz Festival
.
High Wycombe
High Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...
) is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces.
Early work
Mike Westbrook grew up in TorquayTorquay
Torquay is a town in the unitary authority area of Torbay and ceremonial county of Devon, England. It lies south of Exeter along the A380 on the north of Torbay, north-east of Plymouth and adjoins the neighbouring town of Paignton on the west of the bay. Torquay’s population of 63,998 during the...
. After a spell in Accountancy and the National Service (some of it posted to Germany) he went to art school, studying painting, in Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
where he also began his first bands in 1958, soon joined by such musicians as John Surman
John Surman
John Douglas Surman is an English jazz saxophone, bass clarinet and synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, often using themes from folk music as a basis...
, Lou Gare
Lou Gare
Lou Gare is an English free-jazz saxophonist born in Rugby, Warwickshire, perhaps best known for his works with the improvised music ensemble AMM and playing with musicians such as Eddie Prévost, Mike Westbrook, Cornelius Cardew, Keith Rowe and Sam Richards...
and Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
.
After moving to London in 1962 Westbrook led numerous bands, large and small, and played regularly at the Old Place
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club which has operated in London since 1959.The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was managed by musicians Ronnie Scott and Pete King. In 1965 it moved to a larger venue nearby at 47 Frith Street...
and the Little Theatre Club. Together with Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath
Brotherhood of Breath
The Brotherhood of Breath was a big-band created in the late 1960s by South African pianist/composer Chris McGregor , essentially an extension of McGregor's previous band The Blue Notes....
, Westbrook shared the role of House Band at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club which has operated in London since 1959.The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was managed by musicians Ronnie Scott and Pete King. In 1965 it moved to a larger venue nearby at 47 Frith Street...
.
He became a key figure in the development of British Jazz
British jazz
British jazz is a form of music derived from American jazz. It reached Britain through recordings and performers who visited the country while it was a relatively new genre, soon after the end of World War I. Jazz began to be played by British musicians from the 1930s and on a widespread basis in...
, producing several big band records with the newly formed Mike Westbrook Concert Band between 1967 and 1969 for the Deram label, featuring such musicians as Surman, Mike Osborne
Mike Osborne
Michael Evans Osborne was an English jazz alto saxophonist, pianist and clarinetist, perhaps most noteworthy for his contributions as a member to the Chris McGregor band Brotherhood of Breath in the 1960s and 1970s.He was born in Hereford and attended Wycliffe College in Gloucestershire and the...
and Harry Miller
Harry Miller (jazz bassist)
Harold Simon 'Harry' Miller was a South African jazz bass player.Miller began his career as a bassist with Manfred Mann, and came to settle in London...
. The band varied in size from 10 to 26 musicians.
In 1968 his band made their international debut at the Montreux Festival with Malcolm Griffiths, Alan Jackson
Alan Jackson
Alan Eugene Jackson is an American country music singer, known for blending traditional honky tonk and mainstream country sounds and penning many of his own hits. He has recorded 13 studio albums, 3 Greatest Hits albums, 2 Holiday albums, 1 Gospel album and several compilations, all on the Arista...
, Harry Miller, Mike Osborne and John Surman
The 1970s saw a wide range of different projects.
Cosmic Circus, jointly founded with John Fox
John Fox
John Fox may refer to:* Tinker Fox, Colonel John Fox , English Parliamentarian Soldier*John Fox * John Fox , pitcher for Major League Baseball* John Fox , comedian...
specialized in large scale, one-off high technology shows involving high-divers, tight-rope, carnival processions and more. It was part of Earthrise Tour in the UK (May 1970 to October 1971). This included also singer/vocalist Norma Winstone
Norma Winstone
Norma Ann Winstone MBE is a British jazz singer and lyricist. In a career spanning over forty years she is best known for her wordless improvisations....
who performed on several of the band's albums at the time.
Adrian Mitchell
Adrian Mitchell
Adrian Mitchell FRSL was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British anti-authoritarian Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country's anti-Bomb movement...
drew Mike Westbrook in for his musical "Tyger" on the life of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
for the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
. This would become a major influence on Mike Westbrook's work (see paragraph on later work below).
In 1972/73 he also worked in the context of his jazz-rock band Solid Gold Cadillac
Solid Gold Cadillac
Solid Gold Cadillac was a British jazz-rock group set up in the early 1970s.The band featured, variously, Roy Babbington , Mike Westbrook , Fi Trench , Chris Spedding , Brian Godding , Rick Morcombe , Malcolm Griffiths , Phil Minton , George Khan , Butch Potter and Alan Jackson...
. The most consequential effect of this was the participation of Phil Minton
Phil Minton
Phil Minton is a jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter.Minton is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook's group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's...
. His unmistakable voice would feature in many of Westbrook's later projects. A live performance of Solid Gold Cadillac (at the Paris Theatre in London) has been repeatedly broadcast by BBC Radio 6 between 2002 and 2007.
In March 1977 the Mike Westbrook Brass Band, avant-rock group Henry Cow
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...
and folk singer Frankie Armstrong
Frankie Armstrong
Frankie Armstrong is a singer and voice teacher.She has worked as a singer in the folk scene and the women's movement and as a trainer in social and youth work...
merged to form The Orckestra
The Orckestra
The Orckestra were a 12-piece English avant-garde jazz and avant-rock ensemble formed in March 1977 with the merger of avant-rock group Henry Cow, the Mike Westbrook Brass Band and folk singer Frankie Armstrong...
. The ensemble performed in London and several cities in Europe, their last concert being in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, France in May 1978.
Later Work
His work for the theatre began with Adrian MitchellAdrian Mitchell
Adrian Mitchell FRSL was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British anti-authoritarian Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country's anti-Bomb movement...
's Tyger a celebration of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, staged by the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in 1971. This became a vehicle for his Brass Band of the 70's and 80's and the LP 'The Westbrook Blake - Bright As Fire' followed on in 1980. A revised and expanded version of the work was re-recorded in 1997 and named 'Glad Day'. The Brass Band also recorded 'Mama Chicago' described as a Jazz Cabaret which featured the voices of Phil Minton
Phil Minton
Phil Minton is a jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter.Minton is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook's group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's...
and Kate Westbrook. The album was released on CD for the first time in 2007.
Further works of note include 'On Duke's Birthday' which was dedicated to the memory of Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, which was reissued on CD in the summer of 2007, 'Big Band Rossini' which was featured in the 1992 BBC Proms and (2002), commissioned by BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
, which brings together jazz and classical musicians in the New Westbrook Orchestra. Mike was awarded an OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1988, and in 2004 the University of Plymouth
University of Plymouth
Plymouth University is the largest university in the South West of England, with over 30,000 students and is 9th largest in the United Kingdom by total number of students . It has almost 3,000 staff...
awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Music.
He continues to produce jazz scores, many for the theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
with his wife, the singer/songwriter Kate Westbrook
Kate Westbrook (musician)
Kate Westbrook is an artist following the professions of painter and musician. Her musical work centres around her career as a vocalist, predominantly with her husband, British composer and bandleader Mike Westbrook's bands...
. He was featured in the 2003 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary, Jazz Britannia.
Mike's current projects include ART WOLF inspired by the life and work of the Alpine painter Caspar Wolf
Caspar Wolf
Caspar Wolf was a Swiss painter, known mostly for his dramatic paintings of Alps. He was strongly influenced by Albrecht von Hallers poem on the Alps, and the Sturm und Drang movement. After 1773 Wolf mostly painted glaciers, caves, waterfalls and gorges.Wolf was the son of a furniture maker, who...
. In this Kate & Mike Westbrook are joined by saxophonists Pete Whyman & Chris Biscoe
Chris Biscoe
Chris Biscoe is an English jazz multi-instrumentalist, a player of the alto, soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, the alto clarinet, piccolo and flute...
. In a more recent project the couple have been joined by four leading Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
musicians to form the Village Band. The acoustic brass band perform many jazz standards and an original piece, the Waxeywork Show, with music written by Mike and text by Kate. The band perform mainly in the Devon and Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
area and in 2006 they performed several times at the London Jazz Festival
London Jazz Festival
The London Jazz Festival is a London-wide music festival held every November. It takes place in a variety of London venues, including larger concert halls—such as the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall—and smaller jazz clubs, such as Ronnie Scott's and Vortex...
.
Albums
- Release (1967) (Deram)
- Celebration (1968) (DERAM)
- Marching Song - Volumes 1 And 2 (1969) (DERAM)
- Love Songs (1970) (DERAM)
- Metropolis (1971) (RCARCARCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
) - Tyger (1971) (RCA)
- Live (1972) (CADILLAC)
- Solid Gold Cadillac (1971) (RCA)
- Brain Damage (1973) (RCA)
- Citadel/Room 315 (1974) (RCA)
- For The Record (1975) (Transatlantic RecordsTransatlantic RecordsTransatlantic Records was a British independent record label. It was established in 1961. It started began primarily as an importer of American folk, blues and jazz records - by many of the artists who influenced the burgeoning British folk and blues boom. Within a couple of years, the company had...
) - Piano (1976)
- Goose Sauce (1978)
- Mama Chicago (2 cds) (1979)
- The Westbrook Blake - Bright As Fire (1980)
- The Paris Album (1981)
- The Cortège (1983)
- Love For Sale (1985)
- On Duke's Birthday (1985)
- The Ass (1985)
- London Bridge Is Broken Down (2 cds) (1986)
- Pier Rides (1986)
- Westbrook Rossini (double lp - live version) (1988)
- Westbrook Rossini (Studio Version) (1988)
- Off Abbey Road (1989)
- A Little Westbrook Music (1993)
- Stage Set (1995)
- Bar Utopia (1996)
- Love or Infatuation (1997)
- The Orchestra of Smith's Academy (1998)
- Platterback (1998)
- Glad Day (Settings of William Blake) (1999)
- L'ascenseur: Lift (2002)
- (2003)
- Art Wolf (2005)
- Waxeywork Show (2008)
- Fine 'n' Yellow (2009)
- allsorts (2009)
External links
- WestbrookJazz — Mike Westbrook's official site
- WestbrookJazz.de — Mike Westbrook's main discography site