Marching Song, Vols. 1-2

Performer: Mike Westbrook
Distributor: n/a

Notes: Personnel: Mike Westbrook (piano); Mike Osborne (flute, piccolo, alto saxophone); John Warren (flute, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone); Alan Skidmore (flute, tenor saxophone); John Surman (soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone); Dave Holdsworth, Kenny Wheeler (trumpet, flugelhorn); Ronnie Hughes (trumpet); Eddie Harvey, Mike Gibbs, Paul Rutherford, Malcolm Griffiths (trombone); Martin Fry (tuba); John Marshall , Alan Jackson (drums). Liner Note Author: Dave Henderson. As a two-part work that taken together was an instrumental commentary on the origination and folly of war, Mike Westbrook's albums of "marching songs" are considered both a high point in his career and a high point in progressive British jazz of the late 1960s in general. This CD reissue sensibly combines both LPs (originally issued separately, and simultaneously, as MARCHING SONG VOL. 1 and MARCHING SONG VOL. 2) into one package. There's no shortage of quite out-there sections, with the several-dozen strong cast of players--including such standout names as Kenny Wheeler on trumpet and flugelhorn, Barre Philips on bass, and John Marshall on drums--guaranteeing depth and richness to the arrangements. If it's consciously studied as a concept work, it's not so much an anti-war protest (although that sentiment's certainly implied by some of it) as a reflection of war's many moods and stages, from gung-ho patriotism to between-battle ennui and post-conflict exhaustion. As a two-part work that taken together was an instrumental commentary on the origination and folly of war, Mike Westbrook's albums of "marching songs" are considered both a high point in his career and a high point in progressive British jazz of the late '60s in general. This CD reissue sensibly combines both LPs (originally issued separately, and simultaneously, as Marching Song, Vol. 1 and Marching Song, Vol. 2) into one package. Retrospective criticism has perhaps over-emphasized the more tumultuous aspects of these recordings and their relationship to the tense violent times in an era when the Vietnam War was still raging. Certainly some of these pieces and passages do fall into the angry avant-garde jazz category, and titles like "Conflict," with an especially frenetic clamor of a large ensemble, make it clear that war can be hell. Yet other parts of the work are rather exuberant and not all that inaccessible, even if the sendoff parade cheer of Vol. 1's opener, "Hooray!," seems deliberately ironic in this context. It's quite a varied set, at times approaching somewhat commercial bebop ("Home") and meditative lyricism, while "Tension" could almost be the soundtrack of a hip cinematic thriller. There's no shortage of quite out-there sections, however, with the several-dozen-strong cast of players -- including such standout names as Kenny Wheeler on trumpet and fl�gelhorn, Barre Philips on bass, and John Marshall on drums -- guaranteeing depth and richness to the arrangements. If it's consciously studied as a concept work, it's not so much an antiwar protest (although that sentiment's certainly implied by some of it) as a reflection of war's many moods and stages, from gung-ho patriotism to between-battle ennui and post-conflict exhaustion. ~ Richie Unterberger

Record Collector (magazine) (p.96) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Assembling some two-dozen key session players, he delivered obliquely orchestrated music that represented the light and shade, peaks and troughs of conflict."

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