"Mike Westbrook is reflecting on his 89-year life from his cottage by the sea in Devon. Sitting with him in his cosy, book-lined sitting room under a signed picture of Duke Ellington, and next to his Broadwood grand piano, the experience is calm and peaceful. His version of jazz is anything but. For more than six decades, Westbrook has been composing vast, cinematic works."
"The result is music full of brass fanfares, unusual time signatures, poetry, free improvisation, and genre-bending jazz that invites the listener into a continental circus full of elephants, acrobats, and clowns. Recent health difficulties have made playing hard, so he has spent the last two years digging through his papers, sending piles of scores to archives around the country. Meanwhile, a tape recording languishing in the British Library has become the focus of a salvage mission."
"The 1982 studio version is trapped in legal limbo, so Westbrook, unwilling to wait for lawyers to iron it out, has reissued The Cortege using raw material from a primitive 1980 BBC Radio 3 recording, done live in one take. The balance was poor, and the [tape] quality wasn't very good, so it was a question of: could this be rescued? Westbrook says. AI software was used to isolate and enhance individual voices and instruments from the mix."
Mike Westbrook, aged 89, lives in a cottage by the sea in Devon and keeps a Broadwood grand piano in a cosy, book-lined sitting room. He composed vast, cinematic jazz works for more than six decades and helped re-establish big-band music as a progressive force, performing at the BBC Proms, creating theatre with Laurence Olivier, and merging his ensemble with Henry Cow to form Orckestra. His music combines brass fanfares, unusual time signatures, poetry, free improvisation and genre-bending elements that evoke a continental circus. Recent health difficulties curtailed playing and prompted archival work and a rescue of a primitive 1980 BBC Radio 3 recording of his two-and-a-half-hour suite The Cortege, which was enhanced using AI to isolate and improve individual voices and instruments.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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