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Bill Bruford: The Summerfold Collection 1987-2008
by John Kelman
Intrepid percussionist/composer/bandleader Bill Bruford began his career in the late '60s art-rock arena with Yes and, later, King Crimson, but jazz has always moved underneath, like an eddying current. His early recordings, well documented on the companion Winterfold Collection, may not speak the language of jazz, but they possess its spirit. By 1986, Bruford was looking for a new path. Crimson had again dissolved, the 1981-'84 incarnation having provided him with the opportunity to explore nascent electronic drum ...
read moreBill Bruford: The Winterfold Collection 1978-1986
by John Kelman
It's often easy to judge artists based on where they are now, but when you have a recorded legacy as rich as that of Bill Bruford, it's far better to view the body of work as a whole. As divergent as the intrepid percussionist/composer/bandleader's career has been, there are common threads running through all his work, making the earlier, electrified and amplified material on this Winterfold Collection fit contextually as a logical antecedent to his more recent unplugged and improvisation-centric ...
read moreBill Bruford: In the Court of the Percussion King
by Mike Brannon
From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in March 2001. A charmed life might be a good way of describing that of Bill Bruford. Always at the center of and driving vastly creative projects, including King Crimson, Yes, Earthworks, Genesis, Bruford, Gong and many other collaborations of like minds, Bruford continues to amaze and astound both audiences and the modern greats of drumming alike. Though at times self-effacing, tacit, enlightening and direct, he ...
read moreBill Bruford's Earthworks: Earthworks Complete
by John Kelman
Since retiring as a professional musician in 2009, progressive/art rock turned jazz drummer Bill Bruford has successfully managed to maintained a place in the public eye. Beyond his engaging, informative and successful Bill Bruford: The Autobiography (Jawbone Press, 2009), the drummer/percussionist has more recently released a second, equally captivating book, Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer (University of Michigan Press, 2018).Initially stemming from the success of his autobiography but since assuming a life of its own (and no ...
read moreHeaven & Earth: Live and in the Studio 1997-2008
by John Kelman
Yet another year, yet another characteristically detailed and chronologically contextualized King Crimson mega-box set. Except that 2019 is no typical year. And Heaven & Earth is no typical King Crimson box set. While Heaven & Earth: Live and in the Studio 1997-2008 completes (well, almost) the series of box sets documenting King Crimson's original commercial recordings (and so much more), it's far from the group's first (or only) release to go along with the current three-drummer ...
read moreBruford-Borstlap: Sheer Reckless Abandon
by John Kelman
One of the great joys of music can be that of distance: coming back to a piece of music, a musician/group or a discography, even, years later to rediscover it anew. While returning to music after a break of months, years...even decades...is not always a revelation, it's likely true that, if the music was appealing the first time around, it will be just as compellingmaybe even more sowhen a significant amount of time has passed since it was last experienced. ...
read moreUncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer
by David A. Orthmann
Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer Bill Bruford 282 Pages ISBN: #9780472053780 University of Michigan Press 2018 Uncharted: Creativity and the Expert Drummer isn't the place to look for colorful, gossipy stories about Bill Bruford's celebrated years as a prog rock architect and drummer with Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and U.K.; or, his tenure as a leader of highly regarded, if less commercially viable, electric and acoustic jazz units. The book is reminiscent ...
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