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This is from another concert on Earthworks’ lightning-fast 2002 tour of South America. Most of the music on the trip was taken from the album ‘The Sound of Surprise’, with saxophonist Patrick Clahar replaced here by Tim Garland, with Steve Hamilton piano and Mark Hodgson on bass. The song steams along with a steady rhythmic flow, such that you don’t really think of it as in an odd meter. By now, 5/4 has becomes the band’s 4/4.
I’m really beginning to enjoy writing these descriptions. I’ve spilt a lot of ink describing some 140 videos. It’s interesting trying to explain myself to you, the unseen reader, whom, if you have read this far, I take to be interested. And trying to explain myself to myself. Why did I do what I did when I did it, with those people, at that time?
Creativity is all about doing things; agency and action. The point is to try to convey something from my perspective about the drums, the drumming and the drummer, and the broader context in which the music was performed that accounts for those actions. The view from behind the drum kit, if you like. Hopefully the description will shed light on one or several aspects of the video to which it is attached.
I write in a style that I think I would enjoy reading, just as I played the drums in a style that I would have enjoyed listening to were I an end-user, like you. Trying to guess what you would or would not want me to write would be a futile as trying to guess what kind of music or drumming you would want me to produce. Would I read it, or believe it, or listen to it more than once, or watch it twice, or buy a ticket for it at the gig? I’ve always been my own marketing department. If I like it, there’s a fair chance you might like it too. If I think it stinks, you’ll probably think it stinks too, so we’re both sunk.
As anyone writing for the internet knows, there is always the temptation to overstate the case, to exaggerate, to hyper-ventilate, to flatter and shout - anything to gain the attention of a pair of eyes for a minute or two. It’s all about numbers now, in the Age of Distraction. But I’m a stickler for accuracy, as far as possible, in the representation of my perspectives on how it was, how it is and how it might be. I like language, and the English language has plenty of different words from which to choose to get that exact shade of meaning.
And there’s a strange kind of intimacy in this communication into the unseen. After many years of meeting people, I’ve a rough idea of my audience demographic. But truth be told, my best days are when someone under 35 years old tells me they’ve just found ‘Discipline’ or ‘Close to the Edge’ or ‘Earthworks Underground Orchestra’ and it made their day. Or perhaps, even better, that person tells me I’ve been an influence (for good, I hope) on their life as a musician. It’s all intergenerational now.
I’m aware, of course, that what I have to say will bore some to tears, merely seem drab to others, and will be exactly what yet others are looking for. All that’s fine. Any insights I may be able to communicate are, at the least, meaningful to me.
#billbruford #kingcrimson #jazzdrummer #drumsolos #billbrufordsearthworks
26 сен 2024
