The Mike Westbrook concert band 'MARCHING SONGS VOLUME 1 AND 2'
There’s nothing as frightening as the sound of war…
Somehow, Fidel Castro’s off the cuff remark to Manic Street Preachers’ bassist Nicky Wire came to mind when I first heard The Mike Westbrook Concert Band’s ‘Marching Songs’. The Manics were playing in Cuba and apologised for the volume, hence Castro’s quip. It was around the same time that I finally shelled out for Part One of this album on vinyl. £50. Scary. But worth it. Obviously I had to track down the other part, its subject matter, the anti-Vietnam subject matter and its recording at a time when Woodstock and Altamont brought popular music and anti-government issues to the fore were fascinating enough, but the music. It’s wild, consuming, unafraid to travel across boundaries.
It’s an extraordinary orchestrated piece of work featuring a large cast of British jazz players including Dave Holdsworth, Kenny Wheeler, Paul Rutherford, John Surman, Mike Osborne, Alan Skidmore and many more. Released in 1969 on Deram, it captured the spirit of the time and illustrated in an, at times cacophonous style, the peaks and troughs of conflict. The inhumanity of it all, the true desperation that comes from war. As the original sleeve explained: “There is a lull in the fighting. The soldiers, anonymous instruments in the conflict, relax and become human – individuals who can laugh, love, dream of beautiful things that, threatened, are most precious. But the shadow of war is there, and they prepare for what must come. Part of them yearns for battle.”
Starting with a good time celebratory off to war atmosphere with cheering crowds and a heady sense of optimism the piece soon descends into off kilter lunacy as the assembled players solo and duet through the first conflict before the brief lull where they attempt to return to some kind of normality before the final curtain.
“Waiting for the inevitable, the dark hours are full of tormented visions, and unbearable memories of peaceful times. When the moment comes, it finds them unready, helpless and ridiculous. They are lost in an orgy of confusion, of demented panic, violence and death.”
It’s heady stuff. At once uplifting and glorious at other times testing and dysfunctional. It’s an album that is the complete experience. You have to sit down, with a stiff drink half way through and go the distance with it. If you do, it’s a truly rewarding experience and well worth over a hundred notes now on vinyl.
The players: Mike Westbrook piano Dave Holdsworth trumpet, fluegel horn Kenny Wheeler trumpet, fluegel horn Greg Bowen trumpet Tony Fisher trumpet Henry Lowther trumpet Ronnie Hughes trumpet Malcolm Griffiths trombone Paul Rutherford trombone Mike Gibbs trombone Eddie Harvey trombone Tom Bennelick French horn Martin Fry tuba George Smith tuba John Surman baritone, soprano saxes Mike Osborne alto sax, clarinet Bernie Living alto sax, flute, piccolo Alan Skidmore tenor sax, flute Nisar Ahmed Khan tenor sax John Warren Alto, baritone saxes, flute Brian Smith tenor sax Harry Miller bass Barre Philips bass Chris Lawrence bass Alan Jackson drums John Marshall drums
B1 Landscape (II) (Westbrook) B2 Other World (Westbrook) B3 Marching Song (Westbrook)
Volume Two LP C1 Transition (Westbrook) trombone solo Griffiths C2 Home (Westbrook) C3 Rosie (Westbrook) trumpet solo Holdsworth C4 Prelude (Surman) C5 Tension (Surman) sax duet Surman Skidmore, trombone solo Griffiths
D1 Introduction (Westbrook) D2 Ballad (Westbrook) alto solo Osborne D3 Conflict (Westbrook) tuba solo Smith D4 Requiem (Westbrook) D5 Tarnished (Surman) soprano solo Surman, alto solo Osborne D6 Memorial (Westbrook) drum solo Jackson
