BILL BRUFORD’S EARTHWORKS

Random Acts Of Happiness SUMMERFOLD

Welcome return for the dazzling, long out of print, live album.

Bill Bruford has always maintained that his drumming style fell somewhere between rock and jazz. And with regards to his departure from prog supergroup UK in late 1978, he explained that he had a jazz mentality in that he hoped an audience would pay to see him playing something that they maybe hadn’t heard before rather than producing a polished, yet predictable, rock set.

BRUFORD WAS PUSHING HIMSELF FURTHER INTO POLYRHYTHMIC AREAS.

And this 2004 album, recorded at San Francisco club Yoshi’s, has a lot of jazz about it both in the music and that mentality. Bruford’s playing may lack some of the audacity and cliffhanging excitement of his work with King Crimson in the 70s, but he was pushing himself further into subtle polyrhythmic areas and the musicians in this version of Earthworks – Tim Garland on saxes, reeds and flute, Steve Hamilton on piano and Mark Hodgson on double bass – have a remarkable empathy. And the fact that this is acoustic music gives their interplay a particular clarity.

My Heart Declares A Holiday has a Latinate swing, with Bruford’s restless, yet delicate ride cymbal, snare rolls and tom-tom patterns, the rhythm given sharp turns by his dropped beats. The influence of Chick Corea can be heard in the cascading piano lines on White Knuckle Holiday, on which Garland contributes echoed flute and Bruford plays a mean log drum as well as his full kit.

On With Friends Like These his drum solo is beautifully played at such speed that those of a sensitive disposition might be forgiven for feeling a little faint. And at a shade under three minutes, it’s the perfect length. Garland was then new to Earthworks but makes significant compositional contributions, particularly the smoky, sax-led ballad Turn And Return, and his dancing bass clarinet lines lead the quartet into the lengthy Bajo Del Sol.

Bruford’s own compositional chops and ear for a melody have been apparent from the beginning of his solo career in the late 70s. Earthworks play a lyrical take on One Of A Kind, which the drummer wrote with keyboard player and Canterbury scene linchpin Dave Stewart in 1979. And going back to the beginning, there are some repurposed compositions from his 1978 debut solo album, Feels Good To Me. On Seems Like A Lifetime Ago. Garland’s sax takes over from Annette Peacock’s line on the original and the one bonus track Beelzebub is a treat. Bruford wrote it from the drum rhythm upwards, with Stewart helping out with the voicing of the chords and the harmonies, but its zig-zagging melodic lines, which, oddly, feel like they were scat-sung, still sound strikingly original.