E un secondo rinvio causa Covid-19 subisce purtroppo lo speciale concerto che Mike Westbrook con la Uncommon Orchestra avrebbe dovuto tenere a Londra al Ronnie Scott's il mese prossimo (recuperandolo da aprile): un omaggio a Ellington sulla falsariga dello storico On Duke's Birthday, però con molte differenze negli arrangiamenti, diversi brani di nuova composizione e la partecipazione di importanti ospiti. Bisognerà aspettare l'aprile dell'anno prossimo, se va bene. Nel frattempo il Duca è tutt'altro che dimenticato - ma quando mai? - in casa Westbrook: è a lui che si ispira Says the Duke, brano che Kate sta allestendo da remoto con la Granite Band, ed è (anche) a lui che si riferisce Mike in un recente scritto che sul Westbrook Notice Board accompagna Erme Estuary, pregiata perla estratta dagli scrigni The Cortège: "In February 1981 my father died. Among all the many things I owe him is a sense of his great love of music, and the theatre,- a love which my mother shared. He has my eternal thanks for introducing me, as a teenager, to the music of Duke Ellington. At that time he bought me a 10-inch LP of Duke’s 1940s band. That record was my bible for many years. His funeral was at Holbeton village church in Devon. Kate and I played Duke’s hymn Come Sunday. At the time of my father’s death, I was working on the music for a TV documentary, The Haunt of Man directed by Mischa Scorer. The film was about world resources and, inevitably, about our rapacious destruction of the Environment, and the ruthless exploitation by the so-called ‘civilised’ world of ‘Third World’ countries. Forty years on that situation has only got worse.I wrote music to accompany a sequence in the film that showed some of the glories of the natural world, now under threat. This short piece formed the basis of a new section in The Cortège. I named it after the river near my parents’ home in Devon, the Erme."
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/smithsboard/index.shtml
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/mikewestbrook/diary.shtml
https://vimeo.com/456490337
