Mike Westbrook - Love Song No. 1 [Love Songs] 1970

The Mike Westbrook Concert Band (UK) -Love Song No. 1 [Love Songs] 1970

Mike Westbrook - piano
Norma Winstone - vocals
Mike Osborne - alto sax
George Khan - tenor sax
Paul Rutherford - trumpet
Chris Spedding - guitars
Harry Miller - bass
Alan Jackson - drums

Mike Westbrook was perhaps the most influential of the band leaders of British jazz fusion. His Concert Band originally featured Westbrook on piano, John Surman on baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone and bass clarinet two altoists, one tenorist, French Horn, trombone, valve trombone, trumpet, tuba, bass, drums, and debuted with Celebration (august 1967), co-composed by Mike Westbrook (particularly the eight-minute Echoes And Heroics and the seven-minute Portrait) and John Surman. After the inferior Release (august 1968), a larger band (still featuring Surman) performed the pacifist concept of the double-LP Marching Song (april 1969), entirely composed by Westbrook and inspired by Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. A smaller band with Chris Spedding on guitar and Paul Rutherford on trombone, besides Surman, recorded Love Songs (april 1970). The zenith of Westbrook's dense and smooth arrangements was the nine-movement symphony Metropolis (august 1971), recorded by a 24-piece band (without Surman but with trumpeter Kenny Wheeler), followed by the eleven-part suite Citadel/ Room 315 (march 1975), with Surman back in the ranks.