MIKE WESTBROOK — Marching Song Vol. 1 (review)

MIKE WESTBROOK — Marching Song Vol. 1 album cover Album · 1969 · Progressive Big Band Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
If memory serves, Westbrook and a few London jazz scene stalwarts all were part of their armies’ jazz marching bands; and apparently for some, it had some lasting impact, to the point of dedicating album in the course of the pacifist-era in the heart of the Cold War. Ok, I’m exaggerating a tad, because not every one of these tracks are actually marching-band tunes. Indeed the ones where Westbrook plays piano are not marching band tunes (never seen a piano – even a portable one - out on a stroll). With a consequent cast of musical strollers - 13 brasswind players (incl. Wheeler, Lowther, Griffiths, Rutherford, Gibbs) and seven woodwind players (incl. Surman, Osborne, Skidmore, Warren, Smith), we’re also finding three bassists (Miller, Bare Phillips and Laurence) and two drummers (Marshall – then in Soft Machine - and Jackson). Quite the fµçqing crowd, uh?? Anyway, this is the first of two albums, and they will have similar wartime child drawings and both will find a Decca subsidiary label Deram release, within a few months of each other.

Well this type of musical endeavour has its schizophrenia bouts with the very brassy war marches like the opening Hooray and Marching Song(which is rather un-marching-like and the much more-intimate, experimental & sombre compositions like Landscape I & II, and Other World. Only one track is really quite down my own alley: Waltz For Joanna. The semi-chaotic end of the closing Marching song is relatively interesting, but comes a bit late in the album. Sooo As far as I am concerned, this is not that much of an album for me, but it’s not to say that it wouldn’t be for you.

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