The Edge Arts Centre in the small Shropshire town of Much Wenlock has established itself as one of the major venues on the UK Jazz Circuit. Manager/Artistic Director Alison Vermee has attracted a stunning array of talent to The Edge in recent years including ECM stars such as Bobo Stenson, Tord Gustavsen, Mathias Eick and Tomasz Stanko. She has also regularly featured musicians from the dynamic young F-ire and Loop Collectives among them Finn Peters, Ivo Neame and Phronesis plus other leading British jazz musicians such as Zoe Rahman and Gilad Atzmon. Audiences have learned to trust Alison’s judgement and every show is pretty much a sell out. The Edge is one of THE success stories of British jazz in recent years and the place is an absolute godsend to non city dwelling jazz fans like myself.

Tonight’s concert by Mike Westbrook was the last to be held in the old Edge complex. When the autumn jazz programme commences events will be held in a new state of the art building currently under construction adjacent to the present site. It looks pretty much finished and I don’t doubt that the new centre will maintain and even improve upon the standards set by the old. Even so local and not so local jazz fans have enjoyed some memorable evenings at The Edge and in a way it’s sad to see it go.

The Westbrook concert was probably Alison’s most audacious piece of programming yet. Mike’s musical settings of the texts of William Blake are a fairly demanding listen but the skill of his writing and the quality of the performances by an eclectic ensemble of singers and musicians carried the day, quickly winning over a large and attentive audience in the bigger of The Edge’s two performance spaces. Alison admitted that this particular concert had been an honest indulgence on her behalf. Westbrook’s Blake is a long term favourite of hers and one of the works that opened the jazz door for her in the first place. The audience reaction more than justified her decision to programme something substantially different on the last night at the old venue.

Pianist and composer Mike Westbrook has a long term fascination for the works of the London born artist, poet and visionary William Blake (1757-1827). In 1971 Westbrook wrote the music for poet and playwright Adrian Mitchell’s “Tyger”, a musical based on Blake’s work staged by the National Theatre.  In 1977 much of this material formed the basis for “Glad Day”, a Thames TV music/drama production to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Blake’s death. Can you imagine ITV commissioning such a thing today in the age of the bloody X Factor?

By this time the Blake songs had become part of the repertoire of Westbrook’s band. In 1980 he released “The Westbrook Blake” and in 1997 revisited and expanded the material for the two CD release “Glad Day” which appeared on the German Enja label. “Glad Day” remains Westbrook’s definitive take on Blake and formed the basis of the material for tonight’s concert.

“Glad Day” the album added a choir to Westbrook’s traditional jazz instrumentation. The ensemble he brought to Wenlock included the St. Pancras Singers (Emilia Hughes, Sarah Shorter, Sam Jackson and David Neal) alongside featured vocalists Kate Westbrook and Phil Minton. An unusual instrumental line-up comprised of Westbrook himself on piano, Billy Thompson on violin, Karen Street on accordion and Steve Berry on double bass. The Westbrooks plus Berry are the only survivors from the album but Westbrook’s arranging skills ensured that everybody else fitted in perfectly with Thompson’s performance particularly impressive.

Westbrook’s music was certainly a departure from the top quality contemporary instrumental jazz that Edge audiences have been used to seeing. With the absence of drums swing was pretty much absent with Berry’s bass being used in a textural rather than rhythmic role. Indeed most of the rhythm and momentum came from Westbrook’s piano. The leader was at the very heart of the music rarely taking a break from playing and it was he who generally held things together. Although there was no conventional jazz soloing per se Westbrook gave considerable space for Street, Berry and particularly Thompson to establish their credentials as soloists. Enjoyable as these moments were the real emphasis was on Westbrook’s writing, the distinctive qualities of the singing by Kate Westbrook and Phil Minton and the sheer poetry of Blake’s words.

Unusually for The Edge the performance was delivered without a break, a single eighty minute plus performance that held the audience with it’s beauty and intensity. The ensemble began with “London Song”, the St. Pancras Singers’ whispers, drones and vocal clicks underscored by the grainy sound of Berry’s bowed bass. Gradually Street’s accordion was added to the mix before Kate Westbrook took to the stage to sing Blake’s famous words “I wander thro’ each charter’d street” etc.
There were moments of inspired musical interplay between first Street and Berry and then Westbrook and Berry but it was Billy Thompson’s feverish violin solo that really took the instrumental honours.  Thompson is a remarkably versatile player, equally as at home with Django Reinhardt inspired gypsy jazz or the fusion of his namesake Barbara Thompson as he was with this. As Thompson’s solo subsided the piece ended as quietly as it had begun with the unsettling clicks and whispers of the chorus.

Solo violin began “Let The Slave” with Phil Minton this time taking the lead vocal. In other contexts Minton is a real experimenter, pushing the human voice to its limits. Here he sang with passion and in a well enunciated, cut glass English accent that sometimes reminded one of Peter Hammill. Mike Westbrook himself recited the poem “The Price Of Experience” which was incorporated into the piece before Thomson took another jaw dropping solo, bowing frantically above the choral backdrop of the St. Pancras Singers.

Next came"The Children Of Blake” a setting of a poem by Adrian Mitchell movingly sung here by Kate Westbrook, the only accompaniment being Berry’s deeply resonant bass. Westbrook’s solo piano piece “Lullaby” then provided the bridge into the lengthy “Holy Thursday” featuring Kate Westbrook’s impassioned vocals as Blake rails against the poverty and injustice of his London. The piece included some memorable instrumental moments also as Street explored the full tonal range of her piano accordion before joining forces with Berry and Thompson to explore some strange sonorities indeed. Berry’s bass solo saw him striking the strings of his bass with the bow in one hand as the other picked out a melody on the neck of the instrument. Accompanied by Thompson’s pizzicato wah wah violin strumming this section formed a point of entry into “The Tyger and The Lamb”, a feature for the St. Pancras Singers. Here Jackson and Neal took the text of “The Tyger”  and Hughes and Shorter “The Lamb” sometimes alternating vocal lines, at others singing in counterpoint before Street’s accordion solo wrapped things up.

In a two set concert this would normally have ended part one but here the ensemble went straight into “A Poison Tree” with Street supporting Kate Westbrook’s voice in an item that recalled French chanson. Street’s accordion sometimes took on an almost organ like quality and she also featured in something of a duel with violinist Thompson.

The “murder ballad” “Long John Brown And Little Mary Bell” featured Minton at his most Waitsian, growling lines like"Long John Brown had the devil in his gut” before expanding into scat vocal gymnastics above the choral voices of the St. Pancras Singers. Thompson topped this off with a raging violin solo that saw him making full use of his wah wah pedal.

“Song Of Spring” then calmed things down a little with it’s bass, violin and accordion interplay, choral vocals and recitation by Kate Westbrook.

The sound of the church is never far away in Westbrook’s Blake settings. The pianist’s own playing is hymn like in tone and in the chord progressions he uses. In “The Human Abstract” the solo choral feature for the St. Pancras Singers got even closer to formal religious music before solos from Berry and Thompson plus Kate Westbrook’s returned the music firmly to the realms of the secular.

The two closing items “The Fields” and “I See Thy Form” were a segue and something of a tour de force for Minton as Blake namechecks various London locations in his search for salvation. Minton’s vocals were dramatic with Thompson’s solo forming the bridge between the two pieces. The singer’s intensity was more than matched by the rest of the ensemble in a stirring climax that evoked a rapturous response from a hitherto spellbound audience. Although the group took a curtain call this was not the kind of performance to be followed by an encore. The intensity and concentration required of the performers probably accounted for that although I’m sure the audience would have been delighted to have go themselves had Westbrook chosen to strike up Parry’s “Jerusalem”. 

This concert was a true event, one that simultaneously thrilled and challenged the audience. I’m sure I’m not the only listener who was taken out of their normal comfort zone. The skill and artistry of Westbrook and his colleagues was never in doubt and it’s probably fair to say that I, and I’m sure many others present, had never witnessed anything quite like this ever before. 

Having said that I must admit that I don’t find the Westbrooks’ uniquely personal blend of jazz and art song the easiest of listens. It’s hugely successful in it’s own terms but for me it’s music to be admired rather than actively enjoyed. This gig was an experience, no doubt about that, and one that I’m glad I had, but rather like free improv this is the kind of music that’s fascinating in the moment but not necessarily the type of thing you’d want to listen to later at home.

I trust that Alison will forgive me these observations and I hope to be back in October to cover the first jazz event at the “New Edge”.

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