ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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‘His music has been the true soundbeat of his political heart’
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to guitarist Gary Boyle
Gary Boyle (centre) with the Mike Westbrook Band, 1972
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
OF all the albums that the multiple formations of the Mike Westbrook bands have made from duos, trios, to full orchestras and his present “Band of Bands,” the Live, 1972 album, now reissued, gives us the freest expression of Westbrook’s music.
Over half a century on, its power and liberated sounds create an uncanny unity with the free improvisation much more common in now-times.
The guitarist on the 1972 album was the outstanding Gary Boyle, whose soloing throughout the album’s seven long tracks radiates the influences of Ornette Coleman, a strong dose of the blues, and if you listen closely on such tracks as Spaces, you can hear the far echoes of the sitar and his Indian birthplace.
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