Mike Westbrook Orchestra - The Cortège Live At The BBC 1980 - 2 CD Set

2025
Remastered and with new artwork it's a fantastic concert featuring the 16 piece band with a who's who of British jazz talent of the time, and the vocal talents of Kate Westbrook and Phil Minton on arrangements of texts from Federico Garcia Lorca, Arthur Rimbaud, Hermann Hesse, Blake, Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, Pennti Saarikoski, and European Folk Song. Unclassifiable and unique... 

This BBC recording which predated the studio release on Original Records is now being issued for the first time, newly remastered from the original recording.

A large-scale work incorporating settings of European poetry: vocalists Phil Minton, Kate Westbrook with a 16 - piece orchestra originally commissioned by Bracknell Festival 1979. Performed at concerts and festivals around Europe and at the BBC Studio, London, 25th October 1980 for broadcast on Jazz in Britain, BBC Radio 3, 5th & 12th January 1981.

"The Westbrooks have made many beautiful and profound records but this is my favourite. That I can say that without forgetting Metropolis, Citadel/Room 315, Marching Song, The Westbrook Blake, Chanson Irresponsable, Mama Chicago, London Bridge, Art Wolf, The Westbrook Rossini or On Duke’s Birthday is a measure of the man’s music. How many jazz composers could point to a career as rich in masterpieces as that?" Duncan Heining

"“It's only recently that the evolution of distinctly European forms of jazz has been acknowledged, but it began decades ago. One of the first milestones was this huge, unsettling work." The Observer