Forrest Westbrook: Remarkable

Last June, I wrote about an album that pianist Forrest Westbrook recorded with trumpeter Carmell Jones. As I wrote in my post, “Not well known among jazz fans, Forrest Westbrook was rather reclusive on the West Coast as a recording artist, appearing only on several Si Zentner big band albums in the early 1960s and an avant-garde release with Gil Mellé in 1968."

After Westbrook's passing in 2014, Leslie, his daughter reached out. I've known Leslie for a bunch of years and we had e-talked often about her dad. I urged Leslie to scout around for any tapes her dad might have boxed away. One day, after the family's grieving period had passed, Leslie wrote that she indeed found tapes of her dad playing. Her father had a recording studio at his home in Santa Monica.

I put Leslie in touch with Fresh Sounds' Jordi Pujol, who single-handedly has done more for American jazz than most Americans I can think of. For the past 33 years, Jordi has released an entire decade's worth of music (1950s) that never would have been heard in our lifetime if he hadn't undertaken this monumental task from Spain, where the copyright laws place this material in the public domain. Think about all the music you've heard on Fresh Sound and the low odds that any of it would have been released here in the States. The answer is not likely.

Now Jordi has released a second album of Westbrook playing in a trio setting and one quintet track. It's easily one of the finest legacy jazz piano recordings of the year. On the earlier Carmell Jones album, the focus was on the trumpeter. Here, the attention is squarely on Westbrook, who was a superb player with smart improvisational ideas and an exceptional sense of swing.

The trio tracks with Bill Plummer on bass and Maurice Miller on drums include I'm Getting Sentimental Over You, In Your Own Sweet Way, Buzzy, I Love You and Shine On Harvest Moon. These were recorded in 1958.

The sole quintet track, Effa, features Dick Hurwitz on trumpet, Dave Madden on tenor sax, Gary Peacock (above) on bass and Bill Schwemmer on drums. It was recorded in 1960.

As you'll hear, Westbrook had a remarkable jazz vocabulary and intellect. It remains a mystery why he didn't record more commercially or appear often at clubs. In the hands of a producer like Creed Taylor, Orrin Keepnews or Alfred Lion, he easily would have been as well known today as any of the great keyboard players.

Westbrook balked at such opportunities to retain control of his music and avoid dealing with record labels that exploited artists. But there seems to be something more—a bad experience, a legal battle or just plain disgust at what he had heard from other artists. The good news is Leslie has plenty more tapes to share with us, so we'll get to know her father better as the months roll forward. I only wish Westbrook were still with us to hear how much we love his music. I know Leslie is overjoyed that the father she loved so much is finally being exposed to jazz-loving audiences worldwide and that audiences are grateful for the music.