The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London N16 8JH | Bookings 020 7254 4097 | Enquiries 020 7993 3643 | Email Info at Vortex

November 2006
gig reviews

Oren Marshall - Charming Transport Band
John Law Trio
Andy Sheppard - 200 Saxophones - the opening of Gillett Square
Convergence Quartet
Robert Mitchell and Omar Puente
Ian Shaw
Mike Westbrook Village Band Project
Christine Tobin
Billy Jenkins
Huw Warren and Peter Herbert, Led Bib
Anker, Craig, Cleaver & Curios
Nikki Yeoh
Dog Soup
Sex Mob
Taeko Kunishima

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November 2006 gig reviews by Chris Parker

Mike Westbrook Village Band Project

Sunday 12 - at the Spice of Life

The first Sunday of the London Jazz Festival featured three acts who've appeared at the Vortex in recent months.

The downstairs bar at the Spice of Life near Cambridge Circus was host to the Mike Westbrook Village Band Project, a sextet of wind instruments with its roots in relatively informal get-togethers in the Westbrooks' home county, Devon.

They began, appropriately enough, where jazz began, with Jelly Roll Morton, then proceeded through rumbustious but poised visits to Mingus and Monk, taking in Kate Westbrook's characteristically quirky, multi-referential 'The Waxeywork Show' on the way. Another highlight was Blake's 'London Song', with its ever-topical (and this was Remembrance Sunday, of course) 'hapless soldier's sigh' running 'in blood down Palace walls'.

Infusing a repertoire drawn unaffectedly from the entire sweep of recorded jazz, from traditional and classic blues (Bessie Smith also represented) to post-bop and even the cool, with so much entertaining accessibility is a difficult feat, but the Westbrooks and their band (trumpeter Mike Brewer, alto player Stan Willis, tenorman Gary Bayley, trombonist Sam Smith) achieved it; it is to be devoutly wished that any Powers that Be are as we speak pencilling them in for a major role in next year's 250th-anniversary Blake celebrations.

 

 

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