Mike Westbrook
Kate Westbrook London Bridge Is Broken Down A Composition for Voice, Jazz Orchestra & Chamber Orchestra
Press Quotes
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