Partenza con il botto per la rinata Turtle Records, fragile e gloriosa creatura di Peter Eden nell'età aurea del jazz britannico a cavallo tra anni Sessanta e Settanta, ora sotto l'egida di Cherry Red: un mini-cofanetto contenente entrambi i volumi di Marching Song, capolavoro del 1969 della Mike Westbrook Concert Band, un terzo cd aggiuntivo (When Young) pieno di inediti e rarità d'epoca Deram a nome del quartetto e sestetto di Westbrook e della Concert Band con ospite Norma Winstone, più un ricco apparato critico e iconografico curato da Duncan Heining e Colin Harper e uno scritto dello stesso Mike Westbrook. Wow.

Marching Song began as a one-off nine minute composition for a shelved album, recorded by Mike with a Sextet in 1966, previously unissued, it is included here as a bonus track on Disc 3. An expanded 15 piece Concert Band performance of the composition, by then developed into a 2 hour anti-war epic, first took place in 1967 at Plymouth’s Athenaeum. The full piece was finally recorded in early 1969 and released by Decca Records in the UK on their Deram imprint on two separate single LP volumes. In 1970 the LPs were combined for a 2LP release in the US. The recordings were produced by Peter Eden, then in the prime of his modern jazz producing tenure with Deram, capturing the cream of the British Jazz scene which had steadily risen from the mid 1960’s onwards.
This box set also features on Disc 3 both sides of a single produced by Peter of Mike’s Concert Band with Norma Winstone for a one-off single in 1970, never before reissued. Two further bonus tracks are on disc 3, a 16 minute piece entitled ‘When Young’ and a ten minute piece called ‘But It Must Get Better’, both recorded as the Mike Westbrook Quartet in 1970, and previously unreleased.
This box set of the two remastered Marching Song volumes, plus the bonus material mastered from the analogue tapes in Mike’s archive, are packaged with a booklet containing rare photographs from the 60’s live performances plus a major essay on Mike, and these compositions, by noted jazz critic and writer Duncan Heining.

http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/mikewestbrook/marchingcd.shtml
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/marching-song-vol-1-vol-2-plus-bonus-3cd-box-set
https://www.discogs.com/The-Mike-Westbrook-Concert-Band-Marching-Song-Vol-1-2-Plus-Bonus/release/10364575
https://thebluemoment.com/2015/11/23/turning-turtle

Per iniziativa della Hux Records, con il pieno appoggio di Mike Westbrook e l'immancabile sostegno di Jon Hiseman, rivede la luce lo storico album Live del quintetto elettrico westbrookiano con George Khan, Gary Boyle, Butch Potter e Alan Jackson, ripreso nel gennaio-febbraio 1972 alla vigilia delle registrazioni di studio - con formazione nel frattempo cambiata - del primo Solid Gold Cadillac. Rispetto all'originale, un Cadillac del 1973 divenuto presto rarissimo, ci sono qui due sostanziose aggiunte (Marching Song e Spaces, circa venti minuti nell'insieme) e la rititolazione, oltre che di Live in Live 1972, di Hyde Park Song in Metropolis IX. C'è anche la dedica, già presente nell'edizione cd prodotta dalla nipponica BirdSong nel 2007, al bassista Roger 'Butch' Potter, scomparso nel 2003. E ci sono le note di copertina di Mike: "This band only existed for a few weeks, mostly for a south-west tour at the beginning of 1972. After Metropolis I was due to make another album for RCA. I offered them this 'live' recording. They turned it down. If RCA had released it, the group would probably have continued in that form for a while longer. As it was, by the time we made the studio album, Solid Gold Cadillac, things had changed. Some of the original band had gone on to other things, new people were involved and it became another story. We felt that the 'live' recording was important, so John Jack and I released it on Cadillac. Live remains the only document of a moment in the creative lives of five particular musicians. I was fortunate to be one of them."

http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/mikewestbrook/livecd.shtml
http://www.huxrecords.com/cdsales151.htm
https://www.discogs.com/Mike-Westbrook-Live/master/426124

Rimane aperta fino al prossimo 20 agosto la mostra allestita presso l'Haus der Kunst a Monaco (Germania) dedicata alla mirabil storia dell'etichetta Free Music Production (FMP), curata da Markus Müller sull'esempio di quella di cinque anni fa sull'ECM. A punteggiarne l'esperienza poche settimane fa, a quasi metà percorso, vi si sono tenuti due concerti d'eccezione, convocati da Peter Brötzmann: con lui c'erano Toshinori Kondo, Joe McPhee, Heather Leigh, Marino Pliakas, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Michael Wertmüller e Han Bennink. Dopo Monaco la mostra, dal titolo Free Music Production / FMP: The Living Music, riaprirà al pubblico a Berlino nel marzo 2018.

Haus der Kunst devotes an exhibition and concert series to the work of the pioneering Berlin avant-garde recording label and collective Free Music Production / FMP. Nearly 50 years after its founding, the work of this innovative experimental label and collective demands a new critical analysis with respect to its contributions to music. The exhibition and its accompanying program and publication follows on the curatorial context established with the landmark 2012 exhibition and concert series: "ECM: A Cultural Archaeology", which was devoted to the influential work of ECM and Manfred Eicher in 2012.

http://www.fmp-label.de
https://www.hausderkunst.de/en/eintauchen/free-music-production

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