About Mike Westbrook
Michael John David Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces. He is married to the musician, librettist and painter Kate Westbrook. The station broadcast The Mike Westbrook Concert Band performing 'Metropolis', based on Westbrook's impressions of first visiting London, on Tuesday 25 November 1969 at 20.45 from the Ronnie Scott Club. The British Arts Council awarded Westbrook a bursary to develop 'Metropolis' for an enlarged Concert Band, and the jazz suite was further broadcast on BBC Radio Three on Friday 9 January 1970 at 21.00. He became a key figure in the development of British jazz, producing several big-band records for the Deram label, with the newly formed Mike Westbrook Concert Band, between 1967 and 1969.
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