Mike Westbrook at 90

Mike Westbrook turns 90 today. To celebrate that milestone, the master of long-form compositions for large ensemble has released the latest in a series of solo piano albums in which he explores music that means a great deal to him, in the process exposing the roots of his own creative journey.

Some of those albums — Paris, Starcross Bridge, the several volumes of The Piano and Me — juxtapose jazz standards, gospel tunes, melodies from the opera, Broadway hits and more recent pop tunes — in combinations that sometimes seem surprising but always work. The latest of them is devoted to a single theme made explicit in its title: The Piano in the Room and the Blues.

Assembled from recordings made in 2006 at Falmouth Arts Centre in Devon, where the paintings of Mike’s wife Kate were on show, this is a homage to the blues at its most plain-spoken, taking Bessie Smith and Jimmy Yancey as its reference points: the former’s “Young Woman’s Blues” and “Good Old Wagon” and the latter’s “Death Letter Blues” are used as texts, on each of which Westbrook builds several variations.

Given a Steinway grand and unlimited time to set his thoughts down on a Sony DAT Walkman, with no live audience to think about, the oianist settles into a mood of calm reflection, using the tonality and cadences of the blues to explore an emotional register ranging from stoicism to quiet joy. There are no sharp edges here, no attempt to bend the material into unfamiliar forms, and most of all no hurry. A gentle pace enables Westbrook to distill a lifetime’s attention to the blues and what its deep song has meant to him into a very precious document.

* Mike Westbrook’s The Piano in the Room and the Blues is released on the Thingamajig label and is available via Bandcamp: https://mikewestbrook.bandcamp.com/album/the-piano-in-the-room-and-the-blues The photograph of Westbrook at Falmouth Arts Centre is by Kate Westbrook.