Bill Bruford's Earthworks - The Bridge Of Inhibition (Stuttgart, 30th March 1991)
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- Опубліковано 14 гру 2023
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In the 1980s, you had to cross the Bridge of Inhibition if you wanted to bring ideas that smelt too much of jazz to rock people, and those that smelt too much of rock to jazz people. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I spent most of career looking for a safe space in the grey area between the two. These days matters are much improved; a sturdy bridge called hip-hop carries plenty of traffic between both persuasions.
These three guys - Django Bates (horn and keys), Iain Ballamy (saxes), Tim Harries (bass) - were well worth forming a band with back in 1987, at the inception of Earthworks. I heard Django and Iain playing together in a grimy pub in my home town. Both men I liked immediately, but it was their combination that struck me as robust enough to make the crossing. They knew nothing about me, except that I was something to do with rock, and they didn’t seem to mind that at all. I’m pleased to hear the grimy pub has recently been refurbished and is hosting jazz evenings once again.
I was hugely lucky to find the quality of players I did over the 20-year life of the band. Coming from rock, I was a believer in settled groups with participants likely to be around for a while. Earthworks was not designed to be an every-day sort of jazz ensemble with rotating personnel - a band made up of anyone who could make it that night. That sort of rotation was born out of necessity back in the beginnings of post 2nd World War small-group jazz. Back then, the people the leader might have wanted couldn’t always make it, so he’d scrabble around with various recommendations until somebody acceptable was found. Generally, you joined a group, gave what you could, learned what you could, and moved on. That gave fast-developing be-bop and post-bop groups fresh impetus and young blood.
The people I hired were invariably younger and less experienced, but compositionally more adept than myself. They could write pieces like ‘Ikebana’, ‘Nerve’ and ‘All Heaven Broke Loose’. For my part, I could offer an international platform, payment when I said I’d pay, and clean sheets in a single room. So we had a balance of needs. By those criteria I was a good employer. You nurture that reputation carefully if you want the best guys.
We ‘originated’ from the UK. Everyone needed two passports - one to be travelling on and the other in the Embassy of the next country that required a dedicated work visa. The music was a bit odd-ball and not all impeccably transcribed, so sending a replacement (or ‘dep’) was problematic, even if s/he could get the right documents in time.
Then of course, in our infinite wisdom, the UK decided to leave Europe. That threw we musicians back to the Dark Ages - before we joined the European Union in 1972 (then known as the Economic Community (EEC)) - when you’d rattle round Europe with a pocket full of small change in a dozen currencies, getting stopped at every border. Plus there were new problems about instruments on planes.
Touring on the ‘wrong’ side of the bridge of inhibition (i.e. the place where the money isn’t), was never easy and it ain’t getting easier now. Tony Levin, my bass-playing friend and colleague from King Crimson, is on tour in Europe with his band ‘Stick Men’ around now. He reports that he’s enjoying the music a lot, but the nine-hour van rides? “Not so much”. You needed people with patience and stamina, who could fall out of a van after nine hours and still make sense with a musical instrument. In Earthworks, we had just the people. They had the first two requirements in spades and could do the third thing if I asked nicely enough.
#jazzdrums #billbruford #kingcrimson #yes #electronicdrumkit #drumsolos #improvisationmusic #paistecymbals
Great band, and Mr. Bruford is still the most inventive and interesting drummer ever!
" Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy." - LVB
That was a great band Bill!
Man, I love the original Earthworks with Django and Iain. One of my favorite bands of forever. ❤️❤️💔
Saw them.1987
Fabulous! Django and Iain sound like something from the King Crimson of my dreams. (Must be something I ate… )
I wasn't really a jazz fan until I started listening to Earthworks. As a drummer, what initially pulled my in was the use of electronic drums... but I soon started to enjoy and appreciate the improvisational side of the music specially after watching the band live a number of times. This particular piece is a good example of what I appreciated the most about this band, the way it melted together 2 things I loved about music.. improvisation and carefully crafted, but in this case, convoluted path to a precise goal and the whole process would eventually be revealed only in watching a live performance of the band. I thought it was so innovative, so much that I couldn't understand what was really going on until I had the chance to watch that piece played live. ... OMG I wrote a whole paragraph there ;)
The thing that must be said about Bill Bruford is how he can reinvent himself while keeping the perfect composition already written
Wonderful, I saw them at the Pizza club in Soho around 1990 I think, having impulse-bought ‘Dig’ because it had Mr Bruford’s name on it .. and I was captivated In the same way I was with Yes 20 years earlier; Earthworks opened a new pathway to music for me that I much needed at that time. I love watching BB play, his economy of motion is incredible, he hardly seems to move yet generates so much rhythm … oh and the others aren’t bad either are they!?
Bill Bruford, Nosso creme do Reino Unido no quesito bateria e sentimento musical. Lendário! Cheers from Brazil!
Great tune. I saw the band at a place called the Strand in Torrance, CA in 1990. It was a fabulous show. Tommy Lee and Alan White were sitting at the same table as myself. Lots of musicians had come down to marvel at Bill and the Boys that night. Thanks Dr. Bill.
That was brilliant!
Bass player looked like he was glitching out... cool!
Gracias Bill.
Tu carrera ha sido siempre un paso más allá.
The insights on the description of each video are amazing.
Thanks Bill, you are a big influence on me (and a lot more people i guess), not only with your playing, but with your approach to really understand what you are doing.
Much love from Uruguay
That unison horn playing is unreal!!!!
John Zorn's Masada comes to mind whenever I hear this tune.
Was at this fabulous gig!!🔥
Love it!
That's one thing I could never understand: Why rock and jazz crowds claims to be diametrically opposed to one another? From my experience, they're more closely akin to one another than they care to admit. Both are subversive to societal norms in that they're always looking to push the boundaries to more experimental realms. Plus they both have common ancestry in the blues. I feel that all music is for all people, and putting labels on things only serves to put barriers up and keep "outsiders" from discovering the beauty in the art. I'm not saying that everybody will have the same reaction to the same piece of music. I'm saying that labeling music as "this" as opposed to "that" only robs the audience from being able to experience and appreciate it fully in their own way, without pretense. I'd rather be more interested in the artist's intent or message behind the piece of music, and relating to it, as opposed to judging it based on how it's defined by others.
Enough of my rant. I love everything about this performance, it was a masterclass in musical conversation.
Musicians see the bridge between the two camps. Dude that"s 6 deep and loves AC/DC because it's loud and vulgar and boogies or what not doesn't need a thinner sound that relies on the imagination- imagination and being 6 deep are in direct competition in that listener's mind and that's the listener most people are trying to cater to. Jazz could give a F about that- which is also what Rock guy says about Jazz! LOL- you make some good points, I'm just piggybacking here.
Agreed Brett. I especially hated the antipathy towards jazz by the rock fans because all the best rock drummers were from a jazz background, so why couldn't they accept jazz as well?
I suppose in the end time is a great helper, I certainly developed a far broader taste the older I got. I definitely listen to stuff now I wouldn't have considered 30yr ago.
This particular piece is just jaw dropping.
@@gavmcadam6932 Most of the bassists have a strong Jazz background as well.
Saw this at the 'Band on the Wall' in Manchester. Loved that album...
Caught you with Earthworks at the Brougal middle school in Bethlehem Pennsylvania....interesting jazz...I really enjoy your work , all of it over the years. Merry Christmas...😊
This is brilliant! Thank you!
Wonderful piece. Do we say that there could be a slight resemblance in structure as the old KC composition, 21st CSM ?
Great video.
I think it was the original Earthworks line-up, with Bates-Bellamy on the horns/windwood. I have the studio version of this song on CD, late 80's, I suppose.
1:27 I got to say his pulse is terrifying
That Cello player blows my mind. My youngest brother is one who tells me of the vast talent needed working up the ladder, This guy has it all. And seeing Bill in such a healthy state. 1991 was before I saw Crimson in Ft. Worth (92-94?) So this is the first time I saw him in this capacity.. And the Simmons are working - sounding in a way that was missing from other performances.
What Bill has done for me - I can't listen to a song now w/o wondering how Bill would have shaped it.. Many R&B songs I apply in the background his style one hears on Exiles for example. Bill should have been in Sly & The Family Stone.. And have you heard that studio alternate version of "South Side of the Sky" recently found? Bill has that hip-hop sort of sound added into the song which causes Chris to have to play a bit harder too..
A trip to Brno and Ostrva Czech Republic - around 2019 - sooo many live acts out in the streets it was obvious Bill was influential there too.
This tune is so awesome/nasty and frankly weird. Basically, that's why I'm a fan of Bill's. hah
The Electronic drum kit looks great in my opinion, the mix between Jazz and Rock is a color of different sounds but soon I realized that he did play it I'm like the song's drum notes
Shit-hot band, right here. Top flight.
What’s the name of the pub?
And less than two weeks later you were playing with the new expanded Yes in Pensacola! Would love to know how much time that left for rehearsals and also, was there a thought that you might take this acoustic/electronic hybrid kit into that setting or was it inevitable that you would play with the double Simmons set up as per ABWH?
I'll bet any $$ he doesn't want to remember that.. lol We as fans do but reading his book I bet he's rather tell about getting certain teeth pulled. I just hope he went home paid well for that.
Wonderful stuff as always, Bill… and if you one day agree to be a guest on my Red Pill Buddhas podcast series, I will recount an amusing tale about Django and his short tenure with Dudu Pukwana’s Zila in the 80s.
No, nobody has listened to Zappa, Magma, Miles or Hawkwind instrumentals, not on this stage. (But then.…maybe? Maybe even Syrinx?)
I was thinking the same thing!!!
@@zappatx Great minds etc, etc!
Great show!. I wasnt there but Im still mad at you for retiring.
Saw this band at the Chestnut Cabaret in Philadelphia.
I know Tim Harries. he played in a progressive celtic band called Iona. check out Journey Into The Morn if you are so inclined.
This musical space you carved out for yourself Mr. Bruford isn't doing much for me. i know where i first heard these ideas was from Rockschool where you were telling the young creative that your part on drums wasn't about melody or harmony and then played music from said kit of Simmons drum pads. i thought the later bits you played as part of your demonstration got a bit out there and that is what you were making Earthworks early compositions about .. interesting but not great for repeat listenings.
Am I missing the point when I say I hear a connection with Jewish Klezmer music in this piece?
not at all I hear it too and I have it on pretty good authority that Bill was a fan of John Zorn's Masada which was totally klezmer-based....
@@michaelshore2609Thanks for that Michael! Bill is so informative and expansive with his background info that I'm surprised he didn't mention John Zorn in his accompanying notes.I will be searching for that connection myself!