Bill Bruford

L-R Stu Murray, Bill, Nick Bigsby, Dave Molyneux, Mike Miller. November 1964

Evidence at last that Bill can lay claim to being a real musician, and not "just a drummer"! While the 15-year old Bruford was perhaps not up to the Chris Squire standard, he could hold down a nifty 12-bar blues. Photo taken at Tonbridge School. The group had two drummers, only one of whom could play bass, so in an act of unparalleled generosity, Bill lent his Olympic drum kit to Nick and handled bass duties on this occasion.

Those interested in state of the art acoustic fusion - and Lighthouse may have to forgive me for using the ‘f’ word - need look no further than this highly-skilled UK jazz trio. Comprising two ex-Earthworkers, pianist Gwilym Simcock and bass clarinet /saxophonist Tim Garland, the group is completed with the exciting Israeli-born Asaf Sirkis on drums. Lighthouse is positioned where I would have liked to have positioned Earthworks were the old ship still afloat, and had I the imagination, composing chops and a hang-drum, so there is a strong connection between the two groups on many levels.

One of the most interesting developments in adult rock and jazz has been the movement away from ‘notes’ and towards textures, timbres and treatments (see recent blog on 01.12.2011). Those who eschew that area and deal in the simpler, older acoustic realm of melody and harmony may appear, in relief, somewhat old-fashioned. Before their recent gig at the 606 Club in London’s Chelsea, I was a whisker apprehensive. Was this going to be a note-a-thon? They use a lot of notes, certainly, and some chords you can’t spell, but any concern I may have had in that respect evaporated with the sheer small-room velocity and dynamic hard-ball of the trio.

Their strengths are both compositional and improvisational. The compositions - particularly Garland’s ‘One Morning’ and Simcock’s ‘Barber’s Blues’ - inspired by a Samuel Barber piece he struggled with as a student at the elite Chetham's School of Music in Manchester UK - are beginning to adopt the episodic form of small classical miniatures from which at any minute might leap a fully orchestrated movement for large ensemble. All three are world class improvisors.

It’s not hard to see why Sirkis’ is in much demand in this environment. His kit - mirroring the compositional aspect of the group - abandons much of jazz’ standard legacy. Gone are toms, snare drum and sticks, replaced by three frame drums, hang-drum, bass Udu struck with hands or light egg-whisk beater-like items called Blaststicks or Hot Rods. He’s only got to fall over this instrument to sound different. Sirkis is a master at multi-metre intensity at pianissimo dynamic; his frame-drum sound is exotic and connected to another place and from another time. His touch is light; alternately fire and air. The mellifluous timbre of the hang-drum is exactly the sort of sound I was trying to extract from my reluctant electronic kit two decades ago. His understated support on the Welsh song Tawel Nawr was a master-class in rubato playing.

The absence of bass is a voluntary constraint presumably adopted on musical grounds. My sense was that Simcock, although prodigiously equipped with technical facility to deal with any constraints, felt too often that he had to provide the sort of lower-end support traditionally assigned the bass, to the detriment of a sense of unhurried melodic and harmonic development that he’s so good at when that function is adequately taken care of. Garland’s bass clarinet occasionally stepped in to provide superb growling support, but I’m an old-fashioned guy who loves an old-fashioned bass.

I never write about bands if I can possibly resist putting finger to keyboard. Lighthouse are irresistible. Hunt down their April release on the ACT label - called simply ‘Lighthouse’ - at www.bashorecords.com or one of those Amazon-type places. www.triolighthouse.com

Rick Wakeman's kit - with the maestro hard at work - around the time of the Six Wives of Henry VIII album (see below).

You may have noticed the Guestbook has disappeared. It was drowning in spam, so we’ve had to close it down. Anyway, conversation on all things Bruford seems to have moved ‘offshore’ to my Facebook page, so please feel to contribute over there.

What’s coming up in the New Year? Well, French and Japanese Editions of the autobiography, a new edition of ‘When in Doubt Roll!’ to satisfy the modest but continuing demand in that area, and various ‘talking head’ type TV appearances, such as BBC TV’s ‘British Music in America’ produced by Ben Whalley, and the last show of Metal Evolution hosted by Sam Dunn on VH1 Classics.

We’ll try to give you a heads-up on all the above on the News Page well before it happens.

As we head up to Christmas, Foruli publications tell me that everyone who had pre-ordered one of their Special Editions has had their order despatched. Initial feedback is gratifyingly positive,and you may have seen the great review at All About Jazz.

I’m doing postgraduate research at Surrey University now, which is very time-consuming, so you’ll probably be hearing less from me as the months roll on. Below are the last questions I’m happy to answer outstanding from the old Guestbook. Seasonal best wishes to all, and so many thanks for all your support in 2011! Bill

Al Cooper 2011-12-01 12:55 wants to know “What was the song you wrote and performed with Eddie Jobson by the name of Black (I think) Sunday? Can you help me find it?”

Al, I think you mean ‘Forever Until Sunday’, on the album ‘One of a Kind’ BBWF 004CD. Eddie Jobson played the violin lead on that, although he didn’t write it. He is credited as co-composer on ‘The Sahara of Snow. Pt 2’ on the same album. You can pick it up right here at the shop on this site.

Simon 2011-12-01 13:32 has “always wondered how you were approached to play on The Six Wives of Henry VIII album? How were you asked, what did you think of the music while recording it and what did you think after it was complete? Any thoughts during this time would be great”.

Simon – It’s getting a bit hazy now, because it was a busy exciting time with everyone playing on everyone else’s solo album, so I don’t really remember Rick (Wakeman) asking me. Around that time I did a lot of sessions for people I knew – Howe, Wakeman, Manzanera, Roy Harper - and lots I didn’t know. I would have been probably unaware – or if aware, unconcerned – that the track was part of a suite involving Henry VIII’s wives! I was just trying to do the best session I could.

chester f blaszko 2011-12-01 16:14 thought it worthwhile to “ let you know that my 7 yr old son and 10 yr old daughter are aware of you and the bands you performed with. timeless is not a given attribute in music thus my heartfelt thanks for leaving a splendid trail for many to follow for many years to come...amen!”

Chester – thanks for bringing on the next generation into the music we both seem to have loved!

Adam Garrie 2011-12-08 02:05 was wondering “ if the ability to play with multiple percussionist(s) is dependent in greater measure on the attitudes/versatility of the other percussionists or if it's more dependent on a music genre or specific musical composition to lend itself to a larger number or percussionists”.

Adam – I think the trick to multi-percussion is to know what you’re all doing up there and why you’re doing it. With a big simple beat at western drum circle or African village level, it may be self-evident that you play what everyone else is playing; no special techniques required. Then again, a Tito Puente Afro-cuban percussion section stands or falls on an intricate integration where each small detail goes towards the making of a rich rhythmic picture. With Pat Mastelotto in King Crimson in the 90s, we were a bit lost until I figured out that his was the big-beat that connected the audience to us, and my job was to play around the fringes of it, implying other metres, appearing to be behind it, or within it, or using other complimentary timbres and sounds. I was sort of Elvin Jones to his Ringo Starr, if you like. Both drummers were adopting a game-plan. Once you have that, the rest is simple. Until you know what that is, as a matter of cultural lore (like the Afro-cubans) or a matter of planning, composition and intellect (like King Crimson), it’s going to be rough with several players up there. When you know what it is, everything else will fall into place nicely.

Having just been in the US and then Sweden, and addressing plenty of young musicians in both, thoughts cannot help but turn to the relative merits of life in each for the young musician, were I again to be one.

In the vast US, all remains commercial. The imperative to produce an immediate return on each dollar spent continues to be the main driver for club-owner or promoter, who, panicked and nervous, thus provide for the audience what the audience had yesterday. My old friends and co-workers in King Crimson, and it’s various off-shoots in Stick Men, Adrian Belew’s several trios, and Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto’s groups, must play over-familiar repertoire in US clubs, but slide off to avail themselves of more socialist Northern Europe’s generous art funding if they wish to produce arguably more innovative fare with Amsterdam’s Metropole Orchestra, Sweden’s I.B.Expo, or at Norway’s Punkt festival with Jan Bang and Erik Honore.

Meanwhile in smaller European countries, the musicians seem to grow daily in confidence, and their work in imagination. Dan Berglund’s Tonbruket, Nik Bartsch’s Ronin, Barcelona’s Ojos de Brujo and the growing cluster of progressive instrumental musicians no longer look longingly to the west and hunger for an American tour as we did forty years ago. The jazz v. rock issue has been by-passed. Who’s allowed to play what is irrelevant. A new cross-genre progressivism is in the air.

This new progressivism has little to to do with the progressive rock that I grew up with, except in the key motivation - the hunger, the thirst - to find something vaguely different. Attention to timbre and sonic detail (Tonbruket), the sparseness and minimalist funk of Nik Bartsch’s Ronin, the red-blooded rhythmic drive of heavily amplified flamenco guitars over rhythm who’s antecedents are closer to Mumbai than Chicago (Ojos de Brujo) have origins in a local or regional sub-soil. They also may have a sprinkling of state funding to allow the music time to grow and develop strong roots, so to that extent the playing field is not level and the odds are stacked in favour of the European and against his North American colleagues. Society gets the music it pays for.

Would I rather struggle in Europe with Tonbrucket, Ronin, or Ojos than tread water in the US with the ‘heritage acts’ of my youth? No question. For now, Europe has it.

NOVEMBER GUESTBOOK:

Thanks for all the warm notes and emails from The US and Sweden – too numerous to mention all – but it’s been a good autumn and you people made it so.

Jeremy Finkelstein Date: 30.11.2011 …just finished the autobiography and decided to check out the website. What else to say...I guess...Thanks for the music!

Pleasure’s all mine, Jeremy.

Paul: Date: 29.11.2011 Just noticed that you'd already answered a similar question about Earthworks' live gigs. I'm still curious about any additional studio stuff that might be floating around, though!

Paul, unlike King Crimson and DGM who appear to have a policy to make just about everything recorded available in the public domain, I have no such desire to do the same with Earthworks and any material I may control. It has something to do with allowing the artist to bin the off-cuts, to acknowledge that to get where you’re going there may be several - many - fruitless detours, and that it is the artist’s prerogative to so designate them. Much of early Earthworks’ live recordings were horrendously mis-balanced mostly because of the hybrid semi-acoustic semi-electronic percussion array that confused the heck out of most people, including me. Trust me, you don’t want or need to hear that. Crap is crap.

Jeff A. Morris Date: 21.11.2011 says… “thanks for stopping in Kansas City, MO. Glad to meet somebody who I modeled my thoughts & playing after. …What do you do when you want to create or play something different but your brain is stuck?”

Jeff, try re-arranging the instruments in your kit. Or try swapping the hands around, so if you are normally RH lead, play LH lead for a while. Play the part assigned to the BD with your LH, the snare with your RH, and feet in unison…

Cameron Devlin Date: 19.11.2011 thinks… “that Jazz FM interview is horrific. At least nice to see that it's reverted to its original name - it was "Smooth FM" for far too long”…

Yes, I agree, sorry about that Cameron! I couldn’t believe he was asking me such rubbish! I disagree about the name, though. There is so little of anything that I can recognise as jazz on there, I think ‘Smooth FM’ is appropriate. The station is all but unlistenable.

Jason Rubin Date: 13.11.2011 …was wondering about your renditions of Max Roach's "The Drum Also Waltzes" and Joe Morello's "Some Other Time." Did you transcribe them yourself, or learn them by ear? Also, how did you adapt their works to your own distinctive style?

Jason – neither are note-perfect renditions, but they are in the spirit of the originals. Inevitably I applied my style - not something I necessarily wanted to avoid applying – subconsciously - without conscious thought. Morello had a more rudimental style and a flow that joins one phrase to the next with fewer pauses than Max, who had lots of space.

“My first solo piece was called ‘Drum Conversation’, and people would ask me, ‘Where are the chords? Where's the melody?' And I would say, ‘It's about design. It isn't about melody and harmony. It's about periods and question marks. Think of it as constructing a building with sound. It's architecture”.

(Roach cited in Mattingly 2007)

Jerry: Date: 06.11.2011: Bill, during the ABWH tour, the band performed an encore of Sweet Dreams in a "Calypso" or "Caribbean" style. You had some sort of percussive thing between your legs. What was that instrument and how did that arrangement come about? thanks. (It was fascinating that Madison Square Garden fell to silence during that song.)

Jerry, that would have been the same log drum that I’ve used a lot – too much! – on the Sheltering Sky and Discipline with KC and other tracks. Not sure we were trying for a calypso – just something with a different feel. Sounds like the audience hated it…!

Michael O'Connor Date: 03.11.2011 … was reading a blip on some of the song titles and where they originated. Didn't see an explanation for one of my favorite songs "Forever Until Sunday". Is there any story for where this song got its name? It is a really beautiful song.

Thanks, Michael. It was a painfully long time (forever) until Sunday, the end of the tour, when in my case I was meeting my lady again, but it’s about yearning to be with the one you love. Time stands still, or goes slower, when you’re waiting like that.

Shir Deutch Date: 02.11.2011 ….would love to hear my thoughts and impression, if I ‘get the time’ to listen to his band Solstice Coil.

Shir, I appreciate your request, but I don’t do that any more I’m afraid. I’m sure your band is terrific, and I wish you all the best in the world for its greatest possible success, and it’s not that I’m not interested, it’s just that I do other things now. For many years I passed my worthless opinion dutifully on the musically hopeless, the musically more hopeful, and the musically exciting in equal measure. To listen to the music a few times, consider it, and type a thoughtful response of anything more than mere platitudes is a minimum four (unpaid) hours round-trip. I don’t ‘get’ time, but I could ‘make’ time… This I did without a word of complaint for years. I don’t anymore!

Good luck to all, Bill.

Photo shows the outer slip-box of the new Foruli Limited Edition autobiography with unique section of well-gigged Bruford Paiste cymbal embedded in the spine!

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I’m just back from the USA after a short but useful 10-day trip. I only do short these days. Flying doesn’t get any better. I continue to be astonished by the huge interest in all things drums and drumming, and grateful for the continuing interest in my modest contribution in that area. Thanks to hundreds who turned up -it was great to meet as many of you as possible, and thanks also for the kind commentary on Facebook and the Guestbook on this site. I’ve signed my last book for a bit!

The trip ended with my speaking to some business people up in Portland, Maine. These folk were under the impression that we musicians are in possession of some special knowledge when it comes to creativity, innovation, and vision, and that I could introduce some of it to them.

I was a bit sceptical, but evidently large sections of US business is risk averse, tied in by outmoded patterns, mis-manages its creative people, misses opportunites and regularly fails to act. And it’s losing confidence daily. We’ve done plenty of all that of course in all the bands I’ve been in, but somehow we did manage to lurch forward and still put bread on the table. I suppose the story of my / our careers was digging for the best way to get at music, to get it to happen. Key to that was to avoid getting trapped in patterns. If you lay a pattern on a pattern, due you get a third pattern? Thanks to Frank Laurino of Backbeat Creative Strategy and partner John Rogers of Vtec Education Center, jazz afficionados both, for spotting the connection between small (jazz) group dynamics and possible models for business. There was genuine illumination on all sides.

Next stop Sweden.

OCTOBER GUESTBOOK:

Lovers of progressive rock might like to take George Myers’ recommendation: Date: 04.10.2011 “Spread the news around..."HANDS","ALL THE IN CHINA","FISSION TRIP","ELEMENTS" These are some fantastic "progressive rock bands" for anyone out there that has an interest in great original sounds...”

Alan : Date: 08.10.2011 Hello Bill, you are my only musical hero and I believe I have seen you with every group you have ever played with in the states including an obscure one with Jeff Berlin at Michaels Pub. A quick question, Men and Angels is one of my favorite BB tunes. Have you ever played it live?

Alan, thanks so much for your support – that’s an incredible attendance record! Top of the class! No, never played it live, and I wish I had. It cropped up on a Kazumi Watanabe album as I recall.

Michael Date: 12.10.2011: My Father casually mentioned that he had several "Dragon Toms" in his kit in the early '80s. I have spent several hours trying to figure out what these things are. Thus far, I have found very little information. My Father had three of these things in total. One was fitted with a tube, which produced a "booong" sound. The other two had no shell at all, they produced a "back-back-back" sound. Mr. Bruford is the only person I have read about that used anything called "Dragon Toms."

Michael, as I recall, Dragon Drums were clear acrylic drums made by a small company out of Denver CO, now out of business. I don’t remember how I came across them, but there were usually several manufacturers of unlikely looking instruments backstage at Crimson gigs, trying to interest relevant band members. I liked their boobams – derived from the ancient oriental instrument of bamboo cut to varying lengths, but with uniform diameter. The varying lengths give the pitch variability. I used them for years with KC in the 80s. Tama then went on to market it’s own version, called Octobans.

Jonathan Date: 13.10.201 wants to know “…how you first came to wear the Boston Bruins logo on your shirt(s), aside from the obvious appropriateness. Are you an NHL fan, as well?”

Jonathan, when I first came to the US as a kid and saw the Bruins logo in a store, I just thought it was a neat lettering to adopt, and I had no idea it was connected to a team. I’d never heard of the Bruins. Regret I am completely ignorant in all matters of US sport, NHL included! We’ve just issued a retro- B- T-shirt of the last Bruford tour of the US with that band in 1980, at the shop, which might amuse you.