King Crimson - Waiting Man (The Noise - Live At Fréjus 1982) Bill Bruford 2026-09-27 | King Crimson - Waiting Man (The Noise - Live At Fréjus 1982)
Bill Bruford with King Crimson - Waiting Man Bill Bruford 2025-10-10 | This short is taken from the film of King Crimson live at the Arena in Fréjus, South of France on August 27th, 1982. The whole concert subsequenty appeared in DVD form as 'King Crimson: The Noise - Live in Fréjus. The concert can be downloaded here: dgmlive.com/albums/arena-frejus-france. Drummer Bill Bruford has plenty to say about the whole performance over on his Youtube Channel: youtube.com/watch?v=QTUgaThmZj8
Brufords SOLO SPOTLIGHT No.9: Revel Without a Pause from the album The Sound of Surprise (2001) Bill Bruford 2025-10-03 | There are a number of things about this album and this particular solo that have a powerful resonance for me. I tried to get across something of the intensity of the experience of producing the album in my autobiography (Foruli edition: pp 166-170), so I won’t revisit that. The music was recorded after a 15-date UK tour, which usually means you’re sufficiently familiar with the material to know what you can do with it, but not so familiar that you’re already bored with it. We had a great engineer, Mark Chamberlain, at the perfectly adequate Livingston Studios in London. The band was in a good place. It seemed to me that if we were going to make something worth leaving behind, we might never get a better opportunity than we would on this occasion.It was the last studio album I made; and it was (and sounded) expensive. By the turn of the century London studios were too pricey and I never made it over to the world of home studio recording. I also like the album’s title, borrowed from Whitney Balliett’s book of the same name. Surprise is a characteristic closely associated with creative invention, and is never very far from the music I’m trying to play today.Everything I did after this was recorded live. I was simultaneously producer, principal composer and drummer. Any one of those three functions could keep me up at night. The solo I played here was in 5/4, open-ended, but needed to build from quiet to loud; all conditions I was familiar with and under which I might find something. From 6’27” to 6’31” there is one of those moments when you look down at your hands and feet and haven’t a clue what you’re playing. It feels like you’re surfing on pure energy. You head to the end of the phrase and just hope you can find a clean exit. At the end of the process, the inevitable question from Chamberlain: “Is this the take we’re keeping?” and you need to decide fast. This is the stuff you’ll be remembered for, if you’re remembered at all.Am I a rock drummer or a jazz drummer? Leaving aside the obvious ‘Who cares?’, I’d say I have some jazz vocabulary that I tended to use in rock-adjacent music and some rock vocabulary that I tended to use in jazz or near jazz-music. Others have opined that I’m a rock musician with the temperament of a classical musician who became a jazz musician. Many musicians find the tightly drawn threads that define genres far too restricting. What kind of rock or jazz drummer am I supposed to be? Dixieland? Gospel? Metal? Neo-bop? Progressive, or what? The term ‘idiolect’ is used by music researchers to describe a performer’s unique sonic identity. I’ve been chasing that for a while – broadly, it's the sum total of the way you do things, from the way you hit the drum, to your touch on the cymbals, your vocabulary, sensibilities, temperament, and the result of all your conscious and unconscious choices; all the stuff that makes you different from the other guy, and identifiably so. This solo may arguably be better or worse, or more or less inventive than another performer’s, but it is, I think, identifiably Bruford. I rather like that.#jazz #drums #drummer #kingcrimson #livemusic #yes #music #jazzrock #peterothtrio #yes #billbrufordearthworks #musicimprovisation #performance
Bill Brufords Earthworks - Up North (taken from Earthworks Video Anthology Vol. 2 - 1990s ) SHORT Bill Bruford 2025-09-26 | Bill Bruford's Earthworks - Up North (taken from Earthworks Video Anthology Vol. 2 - 1990s ) SHORT
Pete Roth Trio feat. Bill Bruford - Summertime (Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain, July 23 2025) Bill Bruford 2025-09-19 | It’s likely that most of our listeners know the main melody of George Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’. It’s been around since 1934; almost as long as me. So the point of us playing this song, or any other ‘standard’, is to do something to differentiate it from other versions. In doing so, an improvising group would seek to convey it’s own character – it’s own way of doing things. The listener hopefully carries the main theme in her head while we slowly defragment it. There’s a nice slice of that here. The ‘head’ or main theme is followed by Pete Roth’s fresh, spontaneous harmonic meat from 1’37 to 2’13. Where did that come from? Probably even Pete doesn’t know.A bit like a photographer who can achieve a pinpoint sharp focus on the object or a blurred one by moving the lens, PRT would hope to present the ‘object’ - in this case ‘Summertime’ – in a fresh light. Like a stone-carver tackling some rough-hewn soapstone and, after some time, holding it in her hand, turning it in the light, looking at it from all angles, seeing what the stone is saying to her. A bit less here, a shade more taken away from there, and she has the ambiguity she seeks. She set out to carve a bird. She didn’t know at the outset that her piece was going to have that quizzical look on its face that almost makes it human, but that’s the way it turned out, and she’s satisfied. For now.It's a risky operation. Too much fiddling with the lens and we’ve lost the object altogether. And how are we going to put the song back together again, to find our way back to the original theme? Sometimes it works well, sometimes less well, but it’s unlikely to be the same the following night. One great thing about live performance is that you usually have another go the following night to make it better. The music object we create nightly is effectively unrepeatable. What never goes away though is the group effort and skill in making this work as well as possible as a collective, real-time collaboration. PRT strives for an intimate, relatively unscripted music that thrives in small places and dark corners. Such a level of music invention cannot survive a 75-date arena tour, or even a 50-date theatre tour, were such things even available. 28 dates in small, intimate clubs where everybody can see and hear everything, and no one has to shout, will suit us just fine, this autumn 2025.#jazz #jazzrock #yes #music #kingcrimson #livemusic #peterothtrio #drummer #prt #drums #musicimprovisation
Pete Roth Trio feat. Bill Bruford - Excerpt from ‘How Insensitive’ (Live at Jazzaldia, July 23 2025) Bill Bruford 2025-09-12 | This video is from a recent Jazz Festival in Spain, and just gives an update on the Pete Roth Trio (PRT), a work in progress. This is the sort of thing you get when you come and see us. I’m having fun! There’ll doubtless be more tracks to come. Today, though, I want to answer a slew of recent questions from drummers and those interested in drums and drumming. What books and drummers did I study? I got deep into music from my mid-teens to mid-twenties. I studied every drummer I could lay my eyes on, mostly live in London clubs: Aynsley Dunbar, Jon Hiseman, Peter ‘Ginger’ Baker, Mick Fleetwood, Ronnie Stephenson, Roy Haynes. My favourite books, which I still have and from which I still work, were Joe Morello’s Master Studies, Buddy Rich’s Snare Drum Rudiments, Jim Chapin’s ‘Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer’ and George Lawrence Stone’s ‘Stick Control’. Later on, I got to Gavin Harrison’s excellent ‘Rhythmic Illusions’. Any of these can last you a lifetime.What did I practice? I practiced from all of the above until I got bored or went wrong, in which case I’d invent something. Perhaps I’d turn an exercise upside down, or try to play it with my feet rather than my hands. I also took every opportunity to play, with others, any music of any description that could include my instrument, the drum kit. I play matched grip. Were my hands wrists and fingers identical in their grip? I listened to what sound the sticks were making on the pad. Were they evenly matched and producing the same sound at any given velocity?How did I learn what I know? By putting in the hours, and endless trial and error; first, on my own with pad and sticks; then in the rehearsal room with other guys, which often irritated them out of their minds; and finally on stage, where you tend to learn the most in the least amount of time. How can I Iearn and apply the same things?Put in the hours. I can think of no better way than finding a good local teacher. He or she will save you a lot of time and hopefully prevent you falling into bad habits. I had very little formal instruction – a lesson or two here and there. But I watched and listened like a hawk. A good teacher will also guide, direct and broaden your listening regimen.Who taught me?Everybody who ever came out of my record player – good, bad and indifferent. Why were they good? Why were the bad? Why did I think them so? Did others agree or disagree with me? Before digitisation of music recordings, it was hard to slow things down to hear what people were playing. I ruined a lot records trying to do just that.I listened to all sorts of music and all types of musicians, always asking questions. What can I borrow from this? How can I adapt it for use on this upcoming recording session with YES? And I’m not only talking drummers. Miles Davis, David Bowie, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin – all were also influential alongside my Big Three drummers; Joe Morello, Max Roach and Art Blakey.An inquisitive mind; endless stamina, flexibility, endurance and resilience; and the ability to cope with the unexpected – these are some of the characteristics of successful people anywhere, and to be nurtured especially by those who want to perform on a stage.Do I teach? Not traditionally, one-on-one, although I have done that in the past. I’m not very good at it. I’d rather use the written word or videos. My YouTube channel is excellent for both. We have uploaded some 250 videos now of my playing in all sorts of contexts – big rooms, tiny rooms, lots of people on stage, not many on stage, and solo. Anyone can see and hear what I chose to play under specific circumstances, from entirely pre-prepared music (ABWH or YES) through to the entirely unprepared (with Michiel Borstlap for example). So those are kind of lessons, in a way.There are many who demonstrate technical aspects of drumming on the various social media platforms and in drum clinics, but less discussed is why anyone plays what they do when they do in performance. That is a greater area of interest for me.Good luck, and don’t forget to subscribe!#jazzrock #jazz #prt #peterothtrio #guitar #livemusic #music #yes #kingcrimson #musicimprovisation #tamadrumsofficial
Yes feat. Bill Bruford - Yours Is No Disgrace (Official Video) Bill Bruford 2025-08-29 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpq This is a slice of early pop history; how we used to do it decades ago. It was, for some reason 'cool' to be bad at lip-synching: it put distance between you and 'the Man'. It seems was also cool to dress funny. It's pretty excruciating to watch. The music itself has legs and I understand it continues to be a staple of Yes sets. At a recent playback of a Steve Wilson Dolby Atmos remix, I was struck immediately with a rush of feelings and observations. How great and gritty the Hammond organ sounds – two Leslie cabinets. The clarity of the lead voice: the confidence of the backing vocals. Intelligible lyrics that could apply today to Ukraine. How often the drummer stops and starts (six entries and exits in the one song). Little to no use of ride cymbal: almost the whole song the drummer’s right hand is on the hi-hat. How tame the drumming was, or what a light player he was. (How far drumming has come since those days). The unison bass and bass drum at 7.19 (“Yesterday, a morning came…”) sounds like an overdub, but I don’t remember doing one.Steve Howe, on guitar, was caught just at the right moment when all his influences had coalesced into the singular guitar voice that emerged. Fiddling with the stereo panning on his guitar breaks was a mistake. No one wants to be reminded that there is a recording engineer with the capacity to do that when they’re absorbed in the music. Pre-Rick Wakeman, the guitar soloist made full use of his dominant position, with organ essentially reduced to chordal support. Fully four minutes of the track is focussed on Steve’s exceptional guitar playing, either as straight-out soloing or fills. The album from which the track is taken continues by leading straight into a 4’ acoustic guitar solo, so I think we can safely say it took a Rick Wakeman to act as a productive counter-foil to occasional guitaristic excesses.None of these observations about the track are pejorative – they’re just observations. You’d be hard pressed to get anybody’s attention for a ten minute song today. As many have noticed, things don’t change – we do.#yes #livemusic #kingcrimson #jazzrock #jazz #drummer #peterothtrio #guitar #prt #progressiverock #progrock
Bruford - The Sahara Of Snow Part 2: Taken from Rock Goes to College CD and DVD 17.3.1979 SHORT Bill Bruford 2025-08-22 | The full verson of this exciting CD / DVD package is availabe for purchase here: burningshed.com/store/billbruford/winterfold/bruford_rock-goes-to-college_cd_dvd
Bruford - One Of A Kind (Full Album Visualizer) Bill Bruford 2025-08-22 | It's a tricky tightrope speaking to you, dear (but unknown) reader. Are you an a scholar? Are you a drummer? Beginner, amateur, semi-pro, pro? Are you unfamiliar with me and my history, or do you know more about me than I do? You may be an ordinary inquisitive citizen – especially welcome here – who has been attracted by the music and has no particular desire to know how it works, or how to make it work better. I suspect some are interested in my thoughts but want them delivered in plain English. Quite right too, and I apologise if there is too much talk about meters and timbre, and the distinction between paradiddles and paratriplets.Many readers will have heard of the album ‘One of a Kind’ by the band Bruford (1979), uploaded here in its entirety as a ‘visualizer’. It’s one of a handful of albums I’ve helped create that has ‘legs’, by which I mean it seems to have a life of its own beyond fashion and marketing budgets. They went further and lasted longer. Did they sell more than others? No idea, but that’s not the point.These records have great reflective poignancy; they mean as much to me as they do to others who’ve heard and enjoyed them. They’re what being a musician is all about, really. Among others were perhaps Yes’ ‘Fragile’ and ‘Close to the Edge’; King Crimson’s ‘Larks’ Tongues in Aspic’ and ‘Red’; Earthworks’ ‘A Part and Yet Apart’ and ‘The Sound of Surprise’.What’s the relationship between a musician’s feelings for a piece of music – any music - and his or her ability to perform it well? Does the individual need some sort of emotional connection to the music before he or she can do it full justice? Or can you just robot through, half asleep? In my case, my emotional side has best been catered for by being in at the compositional foundation of the thing, as here on ‘One of a Kind’. I find it harder to ‘get behind’ the music if the emotional connection is slight or weak, as, for example, when I worked with Genesis. Nothing wrong with Genesis, but I knew little about their music and had even less emotional connection to it. Any music seems to have less meaning without that extra rocket fuel. It becomes harder to play; harder to generate the commitment needed to make it work. I don’t do robots.#jazzfusion #kingcrimson #music #yes #drummer #drums #groove #livemusic #guitar #musicimprovisation #performer
Bill Bruford - Welcome to my official YouTube Channel Bill Bruford 2025-08-22 | Bill Bruford welcomes you to his official channel! The background video here is taken from Bill's debut appearance in a duet with Dutch keyboardist Michiel Borstlap in Nijmegen, Holland on November 3rd 2002. The pair went on to deliver two further albums for Summerfold Records and occasional concerts together over a six year period 2002- 2008.burningshed.com/store/billbruford/summerfold-bruford/bruford_borstlap_sheer-reckless-abandon_3cd_dvd
Bill Brufords Earthworks - White Knuckle Wedding Short Bill Bruford 2025-08-15 | #billbruford #jazzrock #jazzrock #jazzmusic #kingcrimson #drummer #music #drums #piano #yes #earthworks
Bill Bruford - Pete Roth Trio works stuff out in Paris Bill Bruford 2025-08-01 | #kingcrimson #yes #progrock #jazzrock #prt #jazz #peterothtrio
Bill Bruford - PRT soundchecks Bills piece If Summer Had Its Ghosts in Paris Bill Bruford 2025-07-25 | #kingcrimson #yes #progrock #jazzrock #prt #jazz #peterothtrio
Bill Bruford? What else does he do? See you at the next #PeteRothTrio gig! Bill Bruford 2025-07-11 | #kingcrimson #yes #progrock #jazzrock #prt #jazz
Bill Brufords Earthworks - The Emperors New Clothes (Footloose in NYC, 30th May 2001) Bill Bruford 2025-07-04 | All artists seeking creativity must decide what to include and what to leave out, the two actions being of equal weight. The four players here - Patrick Clahar (tenor saxophone), Steve Hamilton (piano), Mark Hodgson (bass) and myself on tubs - are tackling a Clahar/ Hamilton piece ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, and there are a number of ways we could play it. What we settled on was influenced by a number of things: what our colleagues are doing at any given moment, the form and structure of the composition, the chosen tempo, our individual suite of instrumental skills, the perception of our roles and functions within the group, the ambience within the audience, and much more. The written text, or ‘chart’ in jazz, tends to be deliberately left open, so it can be interpreted in many ways by different players. Experience helps make the decisions for you. You’ve been here before and you recognise the territory. You know what is most likely to hinder the music (usually too many notes). You know what’s most likely to make the music work, and you know how to make it work better. The most in-demand musicians for people like me to play with are not so much the virtuosi, but rather the experienced ones who’ve learned from their experiences. You can get a long way speaking simply and clearly in your mother tongue, without the need for fancy words. I’ve formed two quartets and two duos in my time. All were perceived as long term outfits that would last as long as the participants had a balance of needs. None were designed around virtuoso players, although several members could lay claim to that descriptor. We all had competences and skills, weaknesses and strengths; clearly evident for those with ears to hear.A good band – like, say, the Beatles - has no need of virtuosity. It has ‘merely’ to decide what to do and what not to do, that in itself determined by many factors. And that’s no mean thing. A good leader can help by steering performers towards compositions or kicking-off points that will frame their aspirations. King Crimson and the 1980s Discipline era is perhaps a useful case study in collective, collaborative creativity. The more I hear various editions of Earthworks making light of sometimes tricky material - as if they had owned it from day one - the more proud of them I become.#jazz #music #drums #drummer #kingcrimson #livemusic #groove #collaborations #creativitywithsimplicity #tamadrumsofficial #paistecymbals
Bill Bruford - One Of A Kind Expanded and Remastered OUT NOW! Bill Bruford 2025-07-04 | • ONE OF A KIND by the band BRUFORD: RE-ISSUED NOW, AVAILABLE HERE! burningshed.com/store/billbruford/bill-bruford_one-of-a-kind-expanded_cd_dvdb • 2025 repress of the 2019 CD/DVD reissue of Bruford’s brilliant ‘One Of A Kind’. • Includes a 2017 stereo remix and 5.1 surround sound mix plus the original 1979 mix.• Packaged in a replica gatefold sleeve with a booklet (including 2017 notes) and an extra track.• ORIGINAL ALBUM ALSO AVAILABLE on 12" vinyl, mastered from the original 1979 mix, taken from the original 1979 analogue tapes, housed in a replica sleeve, complete with a signed postcard while stocks last. burningshed.com/store/billbruford/winterfold/bruford_one-of-a-kind_vinyl If you haven’t heard it yet, or you’re new to Bill’s history, today’s your lucky day. One of his earliest and most loved albums as leader/writer/drummer with his late 1970s group BRUFORD, ONE OF A KIND was also highly acclaimed:"It's music that breathes... played by empathetic, truly virtuosic musicians. But is it rock, jazz, prog or fusion? Who knows, but it's some of the greatest British instrumental music of all time." (Phillips, Matt (16 April 2021). "Bruford: One of a Kind Revisited". Sounds of Surprise).“From the get-go, this collection of ten tracks stands as a maelstrom of chops, arranging skills and inspired ensemble playing. The [album] is recommended highly as one of the peak points of 70s British fusion.” (Jeff Melton, Exposé)“…the magic of One of a Kind is that it remains compelling and accessible. The irregular meters are so comfortably-executed and in-the-pocket that unless one is paying attention, one doesn't really notice them. Solos flow organically throughout the long-form compositions, integrated in ways that makes them feel a part of the larger whole…” (John Kelman, All About Jazz).“At what point does Jazz-Rock become Jazz-Rock Fusion or even that word dreaded by all jazz fans, Fusion? This album straddles all three, but in a way that does not imply sell-out, cop-out, or dumbing down. […] There comes a point where pigeonholing Bruford is not helpful since the integrity of the product on offer is powerful, accomplished, rock based electronic music that can be comfortably labelled ‘For Enjoyment Only.’” (Stuart Nicolson, Jazzwise) #kingcrimson #jazz #jazzrock #livemusic #yes
Bill Bruford - Defining Rhythm #rhythm Bill Bruford 2025-06-27 | #kingcrimson #yes #jazz #billbruford #drummer #groove #music #drums #nationalhealth #uk #art #videoart #video #shorts #electronicmusic #funky
Brufords SOLO SPOTLIGHT: Some Other Time (taken from the album If Summer Had it’s Ghosts, 1997) Bill Bruford 2025-06-20 | This is the eighth in a short series of very different recorded drum solos that I’ve produced over the years.I’m about as happy with this as I ever am with anything; it was a good day at the office. Nothing artificial about the recording at all. One natural take without jiggery-pokery, showing any talent that I may possess truthfully, warts and all, in the cold light of day. This is something of an hommage to the great Joe Morello, famous for his work with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. I worked from his book for years; his beautiful, elegant drumming floored me as a young man. ‘Some Other Time’ is in 5/4, of course; a meter I’m beginning to think I’m more comfortable with than 4/4. I’ve found when playing with a group it’s easier to insert a 4/4 under a 5/4 song as a variation, than it is to insert a 5/4 under a 4/4 song. Less chance of anyone getting hurt!I was after a big drum sound, reminiscent of Morello’s drums on the hit Brubeck albums of the 1960s ‘Time Out’ and ‘Time Further Out’, recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City. Thomas Mark, our engineer on the sessions for ‘If Summer Had its Ghosts’ in upstate New York, was just the man for the job:“I was working on a Thelonious Monk record at Columbia studios on 52nd street in 1977. We needed to hunt down a ½” 3 track, and they resided at 30th street. I got to walk around the room, clapping my hands to hear that glorious room sound. I’ll never forget it. Tall ceiling, black curtains floor to ceiling. I think it’s gone like all of the great NYC studios. Many Monk sessions were there, you can always hear it on the drums, beautiful. It was the starting place for the sound we got on 'Some Other Time'”. Sweet sounding job, Tom.The final astonishing thing is that the Brubeck group had a smash hit in the UK in 1961 with ‘Take Five’, not only an instrumental, not only in 5/4, but also containing - wait for it - A DRUM SOLO, no less. I was listening! 36 years later, I’d absorbed some stuff, and I was ready! #drummer #jazz #music #livemusic #kingcrimson #drumming #groove #billbruford #billbrufordsearthworks
Allan Holdsworth of the Bruford group solos on ‘Feels Good To Me’ on the ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’. Bill Bruford 2025-06-13 | ...
Bill Brufords Earthworks - Footloose And Fancy Free (Live In Santiago, Chile 2002) Bill Bruford 2025-05-23 | This captures Earthworks in full flood in Santiago de Chile, with British players Tim Garland (saxophones), Steve Hamilton (piano), and Mark Hodgson (bass). This song had by 2002 become an Earthworks staple, with multiple versions recorded. As I’ve said elsewhere, it became sort of our signature tune, a bit like ‘Hell’s Bells’ was for the Bruford group years earlier.I’ve often felt physically, mentally and musically ‘hemmed in' by the drums, love them though I obviously do. If there was portable percussion of any sort that seemed appropriate to play in the moment, I’d likely find a way to go walkabout with it. The 5/8 rhythm on the African bells at the front here are a lot of fun until I have to wander off mic and we lose some groove. Remember to stay on mic guys!The tongue drum in King Crimson’s ‘Sheltering Sky’ and the Simmons pads at the front of ‘Waiting Man’ provided a similar interlude for me to get out from being trapped behind the tubs, and join in with everyone else on some other part of the stage.The sound of the music IS the music. The sound of your instrument in conjunction with the other instruments being played, is what the music is. A fact of almost any successful pop record is that its sound is more of a characteristic than its melody or its chord structure or anything else. The sound is the thing that you recognize. So the choices one makes in respect of sound is critical. What drums? When? How loud? In conjunction with a cymbal supported by a bass drum, or not? In conjunction with a guitar hit, or not? With a bass figure, or counter to a bass figure? Lot of decisions going on there; some taken months before the show, others made a nano-second before the hit. So now we're talking individual and collective timbre. Timbre is the unique quality of the sound that a performer makes on her musical instrument. When two different instruments play the same note, the instruments can still have very different sounds. For example, imagine playing middle C on a piano and then playing the exact same note on a trumpet – very different. Timbre is all about how something sounds, and is complicated by how it sounds in conjunction with something else: a musical space, another instrument, a different performer. I don’t just mean the micro-level of “is your hi-hat sample better than my hi-hat sample”, I mean the bigger picture of the vast array of available membranes and metals, and beaters and strikers with which to hit them. I mean the great developments in electronic, all-acoustic, or hybrid electro-acoustic kits. We drummers got where we are - at a place that affords real freedom of choice and expression - through the hard imaginative graft of our predecessors, not least in the attention to the timbre of their sounds. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Without Krupa, Philly Joe, Blakey, Roach, Morello, Rich, Ringo and dozens of others, we’d be back stick-twirling in a Music Hall somewhere, drowning in drummer jokes. I haven’t heard a new one of them in about twenty years.#jazz #drummer #drums #music #livemusic #kingcrimson #groove #drumming #billbrufordsearthworks #improvisation #
Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! Bill Bruford 2025-05-21 | Many thanks from Bill.#billbrufordsearthworks #birthdaycelebration
The Bruford group play ‘Back to the Beginning’ at the BBC show ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ 1978 Bill Bruford 2025-05-16 | ...
Brufords SOLO SPOTLIGHT No.7: Indiscipline King Crimson (Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, 1995) Bill Bruford 2025-04-25 | There is another version of this song and its introductory drum solo on this channel: ‘Indiscipline - The Noise - Live At Fréjus 1982’. One thing I notice about both versions is the edgy feeling that the listener is not quite sure what she’s going to get next, and that’s because the drummer isn’t quite sure what he’s going to give her next. One aim of the solo is to impart the feeling that something is being fashioned for you personally in a specific way in that space, and in that time; impossible to repeat even if one wanted to do so. Many people are a bit like my ageing father, who, when played something improvised, smelt a rat, as if he was being hood-winked in some way. “Ah,” he would say, “but can he (the improviser) repeat it – EXACTLY THE SAME?” That was his definition of competent musicianship. I had to explain a little further… Since I couldn’t rise to his challenge, I assume he considered me fraudulent! This feeling that something might occur in the music that was unforeseen by listener and musician alike is first, a precious commodity that most of the bands I like, or have performed with, have already sewn into the fabric of the ensemble; and second, not something that only pertains to jazz. Lots of jazz has precious little dealing with the unforeseen, and conversely similarly large swathes of what used to be known as rock - Bowie, Iggy Pop, Grateful Dead, King Crimson (especially in the 1970s) - were left wide open for Mr Unforeseen to appear. How we coped with it, or not, was part of the ticket-buy.This is all true of the band I’m in in 2025/6 - the Pete Roth Trio (PRT). Our music is perhaps more streamlined and less theatrical than the progressive rock of Yes or King Crimson, so lengthy drum features have been replaced by shorter, more frequent interventions or comments or passages of ‘lead drums’, in the same way as for a while the music might be ‘all about’ ‘lead’ guitar or all about ‘lead bass’. The ebb and flow of these interventions, and the ever-shifting nature of the balance between the three instruments, is something of which we’re acutely aware. For us, it’s the difference between a less good, good and a great evening’s music-making. I loved playing around with sense of menace, or threat, that came with that repeated bass figure in King Crimson's 'Indiscipline'. Took a lot of discipline to play Indiscipline on my yellow and black set, and I enjoyed doing it. This night was a good night.#drummer #billbruford #billbrufordsearthworks #livemusic #drumming #musicperformance #jazz #musicimprovisation #drums #tamadrums #paistecymbals #kingcrimson
Bill Brufords Earthworks - Beelzebub (Teatro Opera, Buenos Aires, 28th Sept 2002) Bill Bruford 2025-03-28 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpq This is essentially the same song as the original recorded version on my first album ‘Feels Good to Me’ (1977), but with drastic colour changes. Gone are my vibraphone and roto-toms, Jeff Berlin’s electric bass, Dave Stewart’s synths and Hammond organ, and the unmistakable sounds of Allan Holdsworth’s legato solo voice and whammy bar. In come the lead voice of Tim Garland’s bass clarinet and the solo voice of his soprano saxophone. In comes Steve Hamilton’s piano, the sound of Mark Hodgson’s acoustic bass and a variety of different cymbals and toms. So, when is Beelzebub no longer Beelzebub? When Beelzebub himself is wearing completely different clothes? Maybe this is a cover version? Sure, this version, performed 25 years after the original, uses roughly the same tempo and notes in approximately the same order, but it’s a big change in the overall timbral characteristic of the song. It’s also moved from not only the electric to the acoustic sphere of operations, but also from the clinical studio atmosphere to the roar of appreciation of 2,500 Argentinian Bruford fans on a smouldering September evening. It’s remarkable how malleable a song is. You could play Beelzebub on a tin whistle as a Viennese Waltz and to those who know it well it would remain the same song. I was not a prolific writer, so most of my compositions were adapted, sometimes drastically, and at short notice, to accommodate new technologies and ever-changing personnel. I’m enjoying chipping in with my ten cents to the collective, collaborative, origination of fresh material for the new group I’m in, the Pete Roth Trio. It takes me to an earlier, pre-digital workstation method of coming up with ideas. Well, if you’re going to do that, I could do this, and that would free up the third participant to hang out, or do practically nothing at all. And five days or five minutes ago, none of us knew we were going to do any of those things. Such is the mystery at the junction of composition and improvisation. None of we musicians seem quite to know why it works, or how we made it work, or whether we can make it work again. But it sure is fun trying. Sometimes it ends up like Beelzebub.By the way, and according to Professor A.I .Google, Beelzebub, also known as Baalzebub, is a name derived from a Philistine god, worshipped in Ekron, later adopted by some Abrahamic religions as a major demon. Often associated with the Canaanite god Baal, it means "Lord of the Flies" or "Lord of the Flyers". In Christian demonology, Beelzebub is often considered a high-ranking demon, sometimes even the prince of devils or one of the seven princes of Hell, representing gluttony and envy. See you soon!#drummer #billbrufordsearthworks #musicimprovisation #kingcrimson #billbruford #drumming #livemusic #jazz #
Pete Roth Trio feat. Bill Bruford - About their early influences - Now on tour! Bill Bruford 2025-03-23 | ...
Brufords SOLO SPOTLIGHT No.6: Bridge of Inhibition (Stuttgart Jazz Festival, 1991) Bill Bruford 2025-02-28 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpqThe Bridge of Inhibition is the bridge you’ve got to cross to leave your fears of ridicule behind as you strike out into unknown places. All good performers have to find it, cross it and leave it behind if they are going to progress. The track was on the first Earthworks album, and has been recorded by the band several times since with different personnel, and indeed with different drum kit configurations.Here, I’m navigating an early ’hybrid’ drum kit; part electronic Simmons SDX sample-based pads, part Tama acoustic drums, and part Paiste metals. I and a few others were having a bumpy ride introducing such things into a genre of music – jazz approximate - that called for more sensitive dynamics and greater timbral control than required for the meat ‘n’ potato rock of 30 years ago. Not the least of the oddities about playing such a collection of instruments was that the acoustic sounds were located in front of me, as you would expect, but the electronic sounds came from two floor monitor cabinets away to my right and left. The pads had a different playing surface to a regular drum, so that too had to be accommodated and integrated. There are a lot of close-up shots here but I don’t remember anything like a camera shoved in my face. It was a very discreet on-stage camera crew. It’s a common misconception that the drummer is soaked in sweat because he’s ‘hitting things’ so hard. Not at all: it’s because the infernal lighting rig is about a meter above my head and the lights are frying me. Happily, with LED lighting everything is a lot cooler these days. Broadly, I’m happy with the shape of the performance. It seems that the performer (me) is on the edge of something, flying by the seat of his pants, inventing something he’s never invented before and will never re-invent in the same way. The drumming is all acoustic until we hear the first electronic percussion sounds at 1’56”. They are more or less blended into the acoustics until the main all-electronic ‘theme’ comes back in at 2’34”. I’ve no idea why there is so much dampening on the high tom and snare, but there were probably some difficult frequencies in the room. Hope you enjoy it!#drummer #billbruford #billbrufordsearthworks #livemusic #drumming #musicperformance #jazz #musicimprovisation #drums #tamadrums #paistecymbals #kingcrimson
King Crimson - The Talking Drum (Live At The Warfield Theatre, 1995) Bill Bruford 2025-01-31 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpqHaving not heard the song for years, I thought I’d listen to this version of King Crimson’s ‘The Talking Drum’ from the Warfield Theatre and then check out the original. So much had changed in the intervening 22 years, without anyone in the band ever really saying anything about these changes. The song just evolved over years of playing.There is much about the original that I like, starting with Jamie Muir’s whirled instruments, which give some movement in the aural space. Whirled instruments are instruments that are played by swinging them in a circle: for example, a corrugated plastic tube that is rotated in a circle to produce sound. The faster the tube is swung, the higher the pitch. Or a ‘bull-roarer’, a piece of wood attached to a string that is swung in a circle to produce a roaring sound - evidently used in in ancient rituals and to communicate over long distances. For the completist, whirled instruments are also the sound source for the track ‘The Shepherd is Eternal’ from the first Earthworks album ‘Earthworks’ (1987). These sounds give way to Jamie’s lovely talking drum, over which Fripp’s guitar yawns and stretches as if awoken by the arrival of Davis Cross’s languorous violin. I also love Fripp’s repeated 5/4 motif, first heard at 4’ 31”, that together with the return of the whirled instruments, caps the piece, before it devolves into a collective shriek, something the band excelled at.Unfortunately the tempo slows a little as the rock rhythm section tries to whisper as quietly as possible under a talking drum. Jamie’s hand-drumming starts around 150 beats per minute (bpm), and the track slows to about 146/147 bpm at it’s climax. Slowing up as you get louder on drums is both a cardinal sin and a school-boy error. Unfortunately we didn’t check it on playback- there were no computers, and all parties seemed happy to go with the take. The Warfield performance, by contrast, starts at around a brisk 157 bpm, settles for much of the middle section at about 158 bpm and gives way to a final rush to 159. Better that than slowing up – it makes for a more insistent, urgent kind of feeling that the song had, by 1995, acquired. With hindsight I should have taken more care with all this. My attention to tempo was not good in 1973, and it will sound funny to those who believe the core function of the drummer is to deliver steady tempo, when I say that that the topic wasn’t of much concern to me. Nobody discussed tempo much until after the drum machines of the mid-1970s., but that's a whole other story. The whole track has the effect of a something coming to life or waking up. The guitarists - Trey, Adrian and Robert - all have individual spots over the groove, before Robert’s wicked 5/4 motif reappears; alive, well and vital as ever. Great to see Robert, at the back and centre of the stage, again delivering one of my favourite King Crimson moments.#drummer #livemusic #billbruford #kingcrimson #musicperformance #billbrufordsearthworks #musicimprovisation #tamadrums #paistecymbals
Close To The Edge performed live by ABWH in 1989 FULL VIDEO @BillBruford Bill Bruford 2025-01-20 | #billbruford #jonanderson #rickwakeman #stevehowe #abwh
Bill Bruford - Live in February with the Pete Roth Trio - Dont miss it! Bill Bruford 2025-01-15 | ...
Bill and Earthworks live in 2005 FULL VIDEO @BillBruford Bill Bruford 2025-01-10 | #billbruford #billbrufordsearthworks #drummer #kingcrimson #jazz #livemusic
Bill Brufords Earthworks - Highland Games (Paderborn, 16th May, 2005) Bill Bruford 2025-01-10 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpqThis 2005 video from Paderborn, Germany, is the only filmed concert of this last edition of Earthworks, with Tim Garland (sax, flute), Gwilym Simcock (pno), Laurie Cottle (bs), and myself on drums. Not only does it have several pieces we never recorded formally - like ‘Highland Games’, and ‘Song’ - but it also has a special place in my heart. Had I known, then, that 20 years later on, in 2025, I’d be writing about a single concert with these incomparable musicians, and be able to present it to you, dear subscriber, along with hundreds of other videos of my performances, on something called a YouTube channel, I’d have counted myself a very privileged man indeed.This was the first public outing, for Earthworks anyway, of this episodic little song from Gwilym. You want an up-tempo 7/4 shuffle with a Scottish flavour? He’s the man you need to write it, and then play the heck out of it. It tested my rusty reading chops; it’s the sound of a drummer hanging on for grim death. I don’t even know if we ran this at the sound check. The little interlude with Gwil and Tim at 4’58” is lovely release from all the other activity. I have written about several other songs from this group and this concert here on this channel. My first public performance was in a bar at a Swiss ski chalet aged about 14. It was obviously, and with hindsight, a foundational experience, seeing a room full of smiling faces looking at me. So I just kept going with this drumming thing, one step at a time. Sure I had a much needed 13-year break. Then batteries recharge. You may think you’re done with it, but it ain’t done with you. I can confirm drummers are better musicians now. Whether better drummers have contributed to the massive rise in use of percussion-heavy music in all media, or the rise in that usage has encouraged the improvement of drummers, I have no idea.But there is definitely too little discussion of playing drums with others, in real time. I’m a product of western popular music of the late 20th century. I’m a museum piece, but perhaps of some residual value. I can talk, remember and tell you how it was (or, better, how I perceived it to be). The sort of collective creative collaboration of western popular music of the late 20th century gave meaning to the process of learning to play. My fiercest critics and teachers were not in cyberspace, but six feet away in the rehearsal room or on the concert stage. If you were smart you listened to your drumming through their ears. So my teachers were my colleagues. I learned what to do and what not to do on a drumkit (and on a stage) not from other drummers (whom, before the internet, I didn’t see play very often) but from people like Laurie, Gwil and Tim. I was lucky to gain more than my fair share of notoriety at a young age which enabled me to start my own career as a leader and hire the best people I could persuade to come and play. Dave Stewart, Django Bates, Steve Hamilton, Gwil Simcock (keys); Iain Ballamy, Patrick Clahar, Tim Garland (saxes); Allan Holdsworth and Ralph Towner (gtrs); Jeff Berlin, Tony Levin, Laurie Cottle (elec bass); Tim Harries, Mark Hodgson, Eddie Gomez (acc. bass); all these people and many others drifted in, around and out of my bands at some time or another, and every one of them had volumes to teach me, much of which you couldn’t find in a book. And I lapped it all up.Hope you enjoy the track!#billbruford #drummer #kingcrimson #billbrufordsearthworks #drums #jazz #progressiverock #livemusic #musicimprovisation #musicperformance #tamadrums #paistecymbals #kingcrimson
Brufords SOLO SPOTLIGHT No.5: Long Distance Runaround (ABWH: An Evening of Yes Music Plus, 1989) Bill Bruford 2025-01-03 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpqI wrote a blog about the performance of this song in detail when the full length video first appeared on this channel some months ago youtu.be/nEeLgqiFKMc. Here we have extracted the drum solo as the fifth item in an ongoing series called ‘Bruford’s SOLO SPOTLIGHT’. Having played a lot of different solos in different contexts with dozens of band over the years, I thought we might focus on a dozen or so of them and talk about them and then – oh, no! – look out! - RATE them at some time in the future! The idea is to select those that are as radically different in intention, sound and execution as possible, so someone considering a solo spot will have plenty of food for thought. Should probably include this one, then.This is a performance that was recorded, not a recording that was performed, as the 70s record industry would have us do. For years, such skills as I possessed emerged primarily through recording. I proudly described myself as a ‘recording artist’, not a ‘performing artist’. How we describe ourselves matters. Recording was much more important than touring because the recording industry told us it was. We sometimes toured at a loss in order to promote the sale of the records from which the recording companies benefitted disproportionately. As ever, all has changed. The pleasures inherent in recording - getting a second or third shot at it; sequencing the audio; designing a package that complimented the physical product; presenting the finished article to an interested public; and watching sales creep up over the years - have melted away. Everything is recorded all the time anyway, so what price the archaic concept of releasing a set of recordings in album form over which you had some control? The thrill has gone.For me, everything now hangs on performance. No one I know in 2025 mentions making a record, as in the old days. Releasing a few tracks officially and publicly, with the performers’ approval, might still have traction, might even expand profile and customer attendance, but broadly my interest is focused on the 150 people in front of me tonight and the different 150 tomorrow night. I want to hear your breathing, see the whites of your eyes, here the pin-drop stillness in the quiet bits. Live on stage is where I can either do it to my satisfaction, or not. That’s where the practice hours show. That’s where I perceive validation to be. Ultimately, I prefer to play with someone else, than play on my own. On your own, yes, more freedom, but that may bring perils of ostentation, excess, lack of musicality. Plenty of those qualities on display here, and my only defence is that the 22,500 people attending needed percussion action and they needed it now. This whole ABWH performance may have been garish, lurid and over-stated, but at least it was in my own way and on my own terms!#billbruford #classicrock #yes #kingcrimson #progressiverock #electronicdrumkit #paistecymbals #tamadrums
Check out ABWH live in 1989 with Close To The Edge FULL VIDEO @BillBruford Bill Bruford 2025-01-01 | #billbruford #abwh #jonanderson #stevehowe #rickwakeman
Check out Bills solo Long Distance Runaround live in 1989 FULL VIDEO @BillBruford Bill Bruford 2025-01-01 | #billbruford #abwh #longdistancerunaround #drumsolos
Bill with King Crimson in 1996 Matte Kudasai live FULL VIDEO @BillBruford Bill Bruford 2024-12-28 | #billbruford #kingcrimson #yes #earthworks #mattekudasai
King Crimson - Matte Kudasai (Live At The Warfield Theatre, 1995) Bill Bruford 2024-12-27 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpqI wrote extensively about this beautiful song and its 1982 live performance in Frejus, France, on this channel, some time back. So this week I thought I’d stand back a bit and look at a couple of the most fundamental aspects of drum kit practice.The first aspect to consider is dynamics. Drumkit dynamics are pretty self-evident: generally, it’s about how hard or soft you choose to play each instrument in the kit, and the overall balance of that; within all four limbs simultaneously and relative to the music at hand. Master drummers like, for example Tony Williams, could turn on a dime from a whisper to a roar, on one instrument in his kit or several, in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of possibilities. Shaping the phrase from crescendo to diminuendo, in milliseconds, probably over the bar line, is a speciality of highly-skilled drummers, like Bill Stewart, that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Imagine you are a recording engineer on an old-school desk with faders that you push up and down. You’ve assigned bass drum (BD), snare drum (SD), Hi-hat (HH) and Cymbal (Cym) to separate, entirely isolated channels, and so faders. You’ve recorded each instrument playing the same exercise, namely steady eighth-notes with all four limbs all at the same tempo and dynamic. Now play the track and move the four faders in any combination randomly up and down as you see fit. Sometime the HH is loud, SD whispers, cym is medium, BD quieter even than SD. Move the faders around again, and all that changes, relative to each other. That’s perfect dynamic control, everything a live player can spend a lifetime achieving. Now, how, where, and in what way you ‘move the faders around’ when you’re actually sitting at the real instrument, and the effects of its application – that’s several stories for other days. Let’s say you’ve been practising the drums for a few years, can repeat a beat reasonably steadily at a middling dynamic volume such that you can play along with your favourite songs and others can play along with you, but you haven’t really tried playing the different instruments at different volumes. You’re at kind of level one….The second fundamental aspect to consider is timbre. Timbre is all about “how does it sound”? Which part of what are striking and with what striker? I don’t just mean the micro-level of “is your hi-hat sample better than my hi-hat sample”, I mean the bigger picture of the vast array of available membranes and metals, and beaters and strikers with which to hit them. I mean the great developments in electronic, all-acoustic, or hybrid electro-acoustic kits. One of the great problems of e-drums is that (mostly) the drum is a single sample that gets louder or softer depending on how hard you hit it. Yes, you have some dynamic control, but little timbral change to go with it. The timbre of a real drum changes radically as you play it louder. The timbre of a drum sample remains the same irrespective of your dynamic control. I wrote elsewhere* that “a drummer’s sound, or timbral presence, is at the heart of his or her character as a musician. To restrict or delimit a drummer’s expressive palette is to […] render him or her faceless, and reduce him or her to anonymity”. Some say that it is timbre, more than any other musical parameter, that makes you sound different. If you can control your dynamics, and the timbral colours of your instruments are unusual, pleasing, or unusually pleasing, you’re more than half way there.*Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer. Bill Bruford. University of Michigan Press. p.161. #kingcrimson #jazz #billbrufordsearthworks #billbruford #drummer #livemusic #progressiverock #improvisation #musicperformance #musicperformer
Happy New Year 2025 From Bill Bruford Bill Bruford 2024-12-22 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpqFor more info and tickets: peterothtrio.comWelcome to this last video of 2024 and first of 2025. I’m genuinely grateful for any time we’ve spent together at gigs or online in 2024, and thank you warmly for making a space to do so.It’s worth taking a moment to welcome newcomers to this YouTube channel. WELCOME! It’s designed to be a treasure-trove of drumming tips and motivational encouragement on any instrument. It’s all about performance: What is it? Is there anything creative about it? If so where do we find that creativity and how do we enact it? How do I know if I’m a creative performer? Almost all videos posted here have a description that looks at and describes the performance you’re watching. Oftentimes I stray into related areas, but I trust you’ll find them equally interesting and informative. It is also my blog - sort of an ‘I-did-it-my-way’ - in the hope that an honest recounting of my experiences might be of use to younger performers on any instrument. I'm slowly feeling my way around a drumkit, after a long time away.. Ah, but it's easy Bill, right? Just like riding a bike?...Well, no, actually. I can ride the bike, and I know where the brakes are, but to ride it at speed as part of a team at international level, after 13 years away from the circuit? That's a whole other thing. So I thank Mike Pratt and Pete Roth, my colleagues in the Pete Roth Trio, for getting me out and about playing stuff here in the UK. We old guys who’ve been lucky - and some of it is luck - are perennially supposed to ‘give something back’. This is my space for giving back! Do stay and have a good look around. It's great to be back!Best wishes to all for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2025!#billbrufordsearthworks #billbruford #peterothtrio #drummer #jazzdrummer #kingcrimson #livemusic
Bill with ABWH Close To The Edge live in 1989 FULL VIDEO @BillBruford Bill Bruford 2024-12-20 | #billbruford #abwh #jonanderson #rickwakeman #stevehowe
Bill Brufords Earthworks - Come To Dust (Live In Santiago 2002) Bill Bruford 2024-12-13 | Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: https://www.shorturl.at/adnpqPlaying slowly and quietly has to be done with the same amount of conviction as slamming up-tempo rock. Being still on a drum kit is even harder if it’s your name on the marquee and your listeners have had a few pints. Occasionally I hang out altogether (‘Trio ‘by King Crimson), or my playing is minimal, no more than the flicker of brushes indicating a forward movement (It Needn’t End in Tears’ by Earthworks).Listener expectations have to be, if not precisely satisfied, at least attended to. A group led by a drummer is generally expected to produce fire and brimstone much, or even most, of the time. I grew up in era in which a drum solo was expected nightly. Indeed, we’re working our way through a wide variety of those solos in the 'Bruford Solo Spotligh't series here on this very channel. In my current role with the Pete Roth Trio (PRT), I have no solo in that expected sense. I may find myself playing alone at some points in the evening, but that’s part of the unscheduled twist and turn of the music. In a trio format like PRT, everyone is on duty and in the spotlight whether or not he's producing sound at that immediate moment. The fewer the people on stage, the more intense the experience for the players. In any improvisation we all have the right to employ silence, and it goes without saying that if left alone, any of the individuals will need to find a conclusion to the piece in a logical and sensitive manner. All part of the fun.But a good evening’s musical entertainment, to my mind, should and will have contrast: light and shade, loud and soft, sweet and sour, quick and slow. These qualities sound best in relief to one another. I’m no better at being shouted at all night by a shred-metal band than I am at being continually whispered at by an introverted guitar-strummer. The qualities may also appear, possibly within a single piece of music, if the musicians are on their game and can feel the dynamic weather as the composition or improvisation unfolds.The dynamics here, peaking at around 1’23” or 6’17”, contrast well with the pools of quiet calm immediately following - at the end of the saxophone solo at 3’36”, or the beginning of a bass solo at 5’12”, for example. In fact there is a lot happening in the track, slowly, and in front of your very ears. Of course, it might all have been improved if the promoter had managed to get pianist Steve Hamilton a respectable instrument, but he probably didn’t get the memo! Hey! No complaints!#billbruford #music #billbrufordsearthworks #kingcrimson #drummer #progressiverock #jazz #drums #musicperformances #paistecymbals #tamadrumsofficial
Bill Bruford and Earthworks with Come To Dust live in 2002 FULL VIDEO @BillBruford Bill Bruford 2024-12-12 | #billbruford #billbrufordsearthworks #drummer #jazz #livemusic
