Kate Westbrook
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

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Reviews of the 1988 album

Perhaps "Les Morts", with one of Kate's finest vocal performances, is its centre of focus but its ecstatic ending with the strange 12th century poem ‘Aucassin et Nicolette’ and its humanistic and heretical theme is simply inspired. This record grows in stature by the year.
Duncan Heining - Jazzwise - August 2008
Westbrook is revealed as a master orchestrator, weaving together the bright and ambiguous threads of section-colour one found deployed so impressionistically in Metropolis and other earlier work... Key to this is Kate Westbrook whose dramatic delivery conveys immense musical subtlety. An essential contemporary work.
Brian Morton - Jazz Review - August 2008
From its first extraordinary, uniquely arresting orchestral shreiks and sighs, through its haunting meditations on loss, division and compassion, to its closing irreverent celebration of the power of human love London Bridge grips the listener like few other pieces.
Chris Parker - Vortex - Summer 2008
Westbrook's integration of his jazz nonet with the 22 piece Le Sinfonietta de Picardie, of improv with scored, and his range and control of orchestral colour are breathtaking. The music's sublime tumult....superbly played and very moving. And, in transcending both jazz and classical influences, it's beyond category.
Ray Comiskey - Irish Times - July 11, 2008
The Westbrooks' massive masterwork... a towering achievement.
Ronald Atkins - The Guardian - September 1988
... a dense, haunting contemplation of irony, ambiguity, courage and love...
Chris Parker - Wire Magazine - October 1988
Kate Westbrook's reading of Rene Arcos's "Les Morts" its tragic lines hissed and spat against chilling martial beats, brilliantly casts her as the mother of all men ever slaughtered on the battlefield, from the Trojan plain to the Fao peninsula.
Richard Williams - The Times - August 1988
With this immensely powerful work, Westbrook restates his claim to international pre-eminence among the heirs of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus.
Richard Williams - The Times - August 1988