L'attesa per l'annunciata versione zurighese di London Bridge Is Broken Down - eseguito dal vivo per l'ultima volta nella sua interezza nel novembre 1990 - termina oggi con la pubblicazione della registrazione effettuata in quella occasione dalla radiotelevisione svizzera SRF. Esce in doppio cd con il titolo London Bridge Live in Zürich 1990, per Westbrook Records. E trattandosi di uno dei principali capolavori dei Westbrook si può voler tornare anche all'originale di studio pubblicato nel 1988 dalla Virgin Venture, in vari formati, e ripreso vent'anni dopo da BGO Records, magari per qualche raffronto.
London Bridge is Broken Down is a two-and-a-half-hour composition for voice, jazz orchestra and chamber orchestra, some fifty performers. A collaboration between composer Mike Westbrook and vocalist/librettist Kate Westbrook, the work was inspired by travelling and performing in the mid 1980’s through a Europe at that time divided by the Berlin Wall. It includes settings of poetry in French, German and English. Its five movements are entitled London Bridge, Wenceslas Square, Berlin Wall, Vienna and Picardie, ‘our personal map of Europe’.
First performed in Amiens in 1987 with Le Sinfonietta de Picardie, London Bridge was recorded at the Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris and released on Virgin Venture. The UK premiere of London Bridge took place on November 9th 1990 at St Anne’s Church, Limehouse in the Jazz Lunarcy Festival and involved the Docklands Sinfonietta, directed by Rupert Bond. The following day the ensemble flew to Switzerland to appear in the Zürich International Jazz Festival. The new album London Bridge Live in Zürich 1990 is taken from the ‘live’ recording of that concert made for SRF radio. This was to be the last time that London Bridge was performed in its entirety.