London Bridge Live in Zürich 1990
‘A dense, haunting contemplation of irony, ambiguity, courage and love’
(Chris Parker in The Wire)
London Bridge is Broken Down is a two-and-a-half-hour composition for voice, jazz orchestra and chamber orchestra, some fifty performers.
A collaboration between composer Mike Westbrook and vocalist/librettist Kate Westbrook, the work was inspired by travelling and performing in the mid 1980’s through a Europe at that time divided by the Berlin Wall ‘our personal map of Europe’. It includes settings of poetry in French, German and English. Its five movements are entitled London Bridge, Wenceslas Square, Berlin Wall, Vienna and Picardie.
First performed in Amiens in 1987 with Le Sinfonietta de Picardie, London Bridge was recorded at the Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris and released on Virgin Venture.
The UK premiere of London Bridge took place on November 9th 1990 at St Anne’s Church, Limehouse in the Jazz Lunarcy Festival and involved the Docklands Sinfonietta, directed by Rupert Bond. The following day the ensemble flew to Switzerland to appear in the Zürich International Jazz Festival. The new album London Bridge Live in Zürich 1990 is taken from the ‘live’ recording of that concert made for SRF radio. This was to be the last time that London Bridge was performed in its entirety.
In 1989 the Berlin Wall had been taken down. Europe’s conflicted history is not easily swept away. Richard Williams wrote of London Bridge ‘we are left in little doubt that here is a lament for the endless folly to which man is heir, pierced by the knowledge of his curious resilience and half-buried instinct for good’.
LONDON BRIDGE LIVE IN ZÜRICH 1990
Kate Westbrook voice Mike Westbrook piano
Mike Westbrook Orchestra
Graham Russell trumpet/flugel horn Paul Nieman trombone/electronics
Pete Whyman clarinet/alto & soprano saxophones
Alan Wakeman tenor & soprano saxophones
Chris Biscoe baritone/alto and soprano saxophones/alto clarinet
Andy Grappy tuba Brian Godding guitar
Tim Harries bass guitar Peter Fairclough drums
music composed by Mike Westbrook
texts selected by Kate Westbrook

texts by René Arcos, Wilhelm Busch,
Andrèe Chedid, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Bernhard Lassahn, Siegfried Sassoon,
Kate Westbrook

Recorded in concert at Theaterhaus, Gessnerallee, Zürich by SRF.
with
Docklands Sinfonietta
conductor Rupert Bond
35-piece string and woodwind ensemble
leader Alison Kelly
Produced, re-mixed and mastered by Jay Auborn at dBs Pro,
Bristol.
Released as a double CD on
Westbrook Records (WR 011) with international distribution by
Proper Music Distribution.
Album supported by Airshaft Trust.
Release date: November 4th 2022

see our notice board for more information

More information about London Bridge is Broken Down
(The original studio recording)
REVIEWS

We currently live in interesting times but the context for this composition is equally extraordinary, as signified by the writer's photo of the Berlin wall from his hotel room prior to its deconstruction in 1989. In the same year the Wenceslas Square demos led to the Czech republic's first democratic elections and within a year the Soviet Union had voted to dissolve itself. And through it all the Westbrooks, travelling across Europe with the Trio and Rossini band somehow distilled this Zeitgeist. Kate Westbrook's vocalisation of texts, from Goethe to Sassoon and not without irony the children's song of the title, moves from intimacy and innocence, to biting singspiel and swooning balladry, constantly complemented by Wakeman and Biscoe, although it's Paul Nieman's trombone and electronics, groined and groaning, that catch the ear. Will we hear the likes of such composition again? Our times surely deserve it.
Andy Robson - Jazzwise February 2023
Mike Westbrook’s music is hardly unique in not receiving the acclaim it deserves, and this double CD is a case in point. Given the music’s vintage it reminds us how much “the edge” has been sanded off “jazz” and the countless offshoots that have laid claim to the term in the three decades since. Westbrook is notable for the sources he’s drawn upon from outside the jazz field – William Blake, Rossini and some of the more rarefied strands of musical theatre, for example – and even in this significantly instrumental set he draws upon texts by Goethe, Sassoon and others to colour a body of music that’s far from monochrome in the instrumental sense. Indeed the deftness with which the forces of Westbrook’s 11-piece band and the Docklands Sinfonietta under Rupert Bond’s baton are deployed is a model of how to create light and space in an environment which on the surface seems musically congested. Outside of the units, soloists such as guitarist Brian Godding (notably on London Bridge itself), Chris Biscoe (on baritone on the Nähe Des Geliebten part of Berlin Wall and alto on the Traurig Aber Falsch part of the same title) and Pete Whyman (on clarinet on Vienna: Viennese Waltz) bring innate, almost Ellingtonian understanding to the table in a manner that reminds us of the potency of longstanding musical associations. Kate Westbrook’s voice brings shades of Lotte Lenya and Ute Lemper to proceedings, notably on the part of Berlin Wall referenced above. This adds further spice to the mix and emphasises the breadth and depth of ground covered.
Nic Jones - Jazz Journal December 2022
A few years after creating his Blake settings, Mike Westbrook composed an extended work for band and orchestra titled London Bridge Is Broken Down, commissioned by and first performed at a festival in Amiens in 1987. Inspired by travels around Europe and meditations on its history at a time when an old order was falling apart, it is divided into sections titled London Bridge, Wenceslas Square, Berlin Wall, Vienna and Picardie. A much admired studio version came out on Virgin the following year. Now there’s the release of the recording of a performance in Zürich in 1990, with Westbrook’s 11-piece unit and the 35-piece Docklands Sinfonietta. Even if you already have the original release, I recommend hearing this one, too, for the exceptional spirit with which the work is played and sung (by Kate Westbrook, using texts from Goethe, Siegfried Sassoon and others). All Westbrook’s virtues and trademarks are allowed to flower in this 80-minute performance, which stands tall among his catalogue of extended works. The 23-minute sub-section of Vienna titled “Für Sie”, with solos by Alan Wakeman on soprano saxophone, Paul Nieman on trombone, Chris Biscoe on baritone and Pete Whyman on alto, is a slowly unfolding kaleidoscope of exquisite shapes, sounds, trajectories and textures.
Richard Williams - The Blue Moment November 2022
Viewed from the other side of the Atlantic, Mike Westbrook is probably Britain's best kept secret. A composer, pianist and tubaist—above all, composer—Westbrook's recording career began in the late 1960s. Since then he has released upwards of fifty albums, spanning jazz rock through jazz and contemporary-classical fusions such as the 2 x CD London Bridge Live In Zurich 1990. Westbrook's albums have been performed by lineups ranging in size from trios through to, in this case, an elevenpiece jazz orchestra augmented by a thirty-five piece chamber orchestra (London's Docklands Ensemble) and the vocalist Kate Westbrook, his wife.
Five gets you ten, however, that a straw poll of audience members in the Village Vanguard any night of the week would result in minimal if not zero recognition of Westbrook's name. This is not to belittle New York audiences, for Westbrook has never made an attempt to break his music in America. Moreover, in Britain and Europe, where he has a following, he remains niche. The simple fact is that much of his music is serious, art not entertainment, though entertaining art, and is uncompromised by ambitions for commercial success. At age 86, Westbrook remains, as the French expression goes, a succès d'estime, revered by cognoscenti, unknown to the wider audience.
The cognoscenti know London Bridge well: a studio version, recorded in Paris, was released in 1988. The album to hand was recorded at the Zurich International Jazz Festival two years later. It is hard to imagine anyone but the Swiss, bless them, reaching into their pockets to fly close on fifty musicians, their freight and support team out from London for a one-night stand, pay them a decent fee and accommodate them in comfortable hotels, which Westbrook confirms they did do.
The two-and-a-half hour suite, which is among Westbrook's finest, grew out of tours the Westbrooks made in Europe in 1986-87. It was a tumultuous time on the continent. After the upheavals in Western Europe of the 1960s and 1970s, pressure for change was building in the East. Places the pair visited, such as Prague's Wenceslas Square and the Berlin Wall, would soon take on new historical resonances. In October 1989, demonstrations in Wenceslas Square led to democratic elections in Czechoslovakia. On November 9, 1989, the demolition of the Berlin Wall began. A year and a day later, London Bridge Live In Zurich 1990 was recorded.
Mike Westbrook wrote the suite in five parts: "London Bridge," "Wenceslas Square," "Berlin Wall," "Vienna" and "Picardie." The music is monumental, in the best sense, its vibe spanning gentle intimacy on to the cruelty of autocracy and (in "Picardie") the horror of war. It never descends into cheap sentimentality. The standard of musicianship, like that of the material, is of the highest calibre. Among the soloists, saxophonists Chris Biscoe and Alan Wakeman, trombonist Paul Nieman and guitarist Brian Godding are particularly delightful. Kate Westbrook's sung/spoken word vocals are integral to the piece and are featured on eight of the twelve tracks. She recites texts by writers and poets including Goethe and the British war poet Siegfried Sassoon, who served in and survived the trenches in the First World War.
London Bridge Live In Zurich 1990 is spread over two CDs and is a digital reconstruction and remaster of the original stereo recording made by Swiss radio. The package comes with a booklet which includes original language and English translations of the texts Kate Westbrook delivers.
Chris May - All About Jazz November 2022
Mike Westbrook’s wonderfully extended career has covered a range from big bands to small groups and, occasionally, solo piano performances. But his most lasting achievements have probably been as composer and arranger for large-scale forces. London Bridge is Broken Down was first performed in Amiens, a commission from the city’s jazz festival, and a studio recording appeared soon after. The whole piece, running over two and a half hours, was performed three years later, the day after a one-nighter in London. That final airing for the work was preserved on tape by Swiss Radio and that realisation, lovingly remastered byJay Auborn, is presented here on 2 CDs .
This is the Westbrooks - Mike and Kate - at their most expansive. A nine - piece version of the Westbrook Orchestra, including longtime associates such as Alan Wakeman and Chris Biscoe on saxes, Paul Nieman on trombone and Brian Godding on guitar, is augmented by 35 string and woodwind players from the Docklands Sinfonietta. And like the most obvious comparison in the Westbrook oeuvre, the widescreen epic The Cortège from 1979, it is the work of roving intellects, referencing places the Westbrooks played throughout Europe, and incorporating texts in three languages.
Listening to the whole thing is quite an experience. Two sites, Prague’s Wenceslas Square and Vienna are conjured by instrumental pieces: each lasts half an hour and they are substantial works in their own right. Westbrook uses the enlarged instrumentation brilliantly to enhance his textures, and - here as elsewhere - there is bags of space for the regular orchestral players.
The texts, voiced with theatrical flair by Kate Westbrook in some of her best recorded work, illuminate a section assigned to the Berlin Wall( still in place when the piece was conceived, gloriously demolished by the time of this rendition), with translations from the German in the CD liner helping the monoglot listener. And this tour of old Europe concludes in the war graves of Picardie, where Siegfried Sassoon’s scalding Blighters furnishes one of the suite’s most powerful moments. These marvellous evocations of human follies and foibles date from a time when Europe looked forward to reaping the benefits of enduring peace, and of new-found liberation in the Eastern bloc.They gain poignancy in a darker climate three decades on. In both eras, London Bridge stands out as one of the most accomplished works from one who has been a remarkable creative force for more than half a century.
John Turney - London Jazz News December 2022
Mike Westbrook