Bill Bruford is quite rightly regarded as one of the finest drummers in the world through his work with Yes, King Crimson and UK, and his work with Patrick Moraz, not forgetting his own band Bruford. In fact, in 1969 Bill had already been noticed by the great Buddy Rich who was to comment "Hey, that's a good drummer...Good hands!" Praise indeed. Bill Bruford, however, has always been a huge fan of Jazz and so inevitably it was jazz that Bill turned to when he wanted to expand his musical horizons. Bill formed the band Earthworks in 1986 with the idea of integrating electronic drums and percussion into a jazz situation. Previously electronic drums had been seen as a novelty and more or less ignored by the jazz community. However, by the mid-eighties Bill felt that technology had moved on to such an extent that the introduction of electronic drums into a jazz set up would not only be viable but also musically worthwhile. The band was made up of Bill on drums and percussion and young jazz musicians Django Bates, Ian Ballamy and Mick Hutton. The band recorded their debut album the self-titled Earthworks, which was released in 1987. The band set about playing dates and subsequently followed this up with their second release, Dig, in 1989 and another studio album, All Heaven Broke Loose in 1993. Following the band's live album Stamping Ground in 1994 Bill turned his attention back to work with King Crimson and for the next few years worked with Robert Fripp not only in King Crimson but also other improvisational projects connected with King Crimson. In 1997 Heavenly Bodies was released, which provided an introduction to the music of Earthworks as a fine compilation of tracks from the bands releases to date and included one unreleased live track. By the time the band had returned to full time activity not only the line-up had changed but also the musical direction. Whilst the music was still definitely jazz Bill felt that he had taken the electronic drums direction as far as it could go and the band was now an acoustic based jazz quartet, which now included Bruford, Steve Hamilton, Patrick Clahar and Mark Hodgson.
The new line-up of Earthworks wasted no time in recording the album A Part and Yet Apart in 1999 and The Sound Of Surprise in 2001. This line-up was also responsible for the live album Footloose And Fancy Free that was recorded in front of an enthusiastic audience at dates in London during 2001. An accompanying DVD was also filmed in New York and entitled Footloose In New York.
Having re-established themselves both live and in the studio the band then set about recording their next album and the decision was taken to record another live album. The album, Random Acts Of Happiness, was recorded in San Francisco at the celebrated jazz club Yoshi's in Summer 2003. This album also sees the recording debut of Tim Garland who replaced Patrick Clahar. As the magazine Downbeat said in its 5-Star review of Earthworks in 2002, 'It's no surprise anymore how good Earthworks is.'
