TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!
Features Bill Bruford's "Live in Tokyo" and "Introduction to Bill Bruford".
Introduction -
Many people will know the name Bill Bruford and it isn’t just restricted to those of us in their middle forties or early fifties who remember him as a member of Yes or King Crimson, or perhaps many of the sessions Bill has managed to notch up over the years, most notably for Genesis for whom he briefly drummed alongside Phil Collins when Phil took over the vocalists spot vacated by Peter Gabriel. These days Bill fronts the jazz quartet Earthworksand in addition to playing the odd session Bill seems more than happy playing dates as far afield as Japan and South America to enthusiastic jazz audiences and music lovers in general.
Like most artists of his generation Bill Bruford has reached the point where he can keep most aspects of his career both past and present under his control and with that in mind he has recently launched two record label imprints: Summerfold Records and Winterfold Records.
If Summerfold covers the material recorded by Bill’s current band Earthworks, Winterfold will address the material recorded by the Band Bruford and Bill’s collaboration with another former Yes man Patrick Moraz. The label has re-issued the three studio albums recorded by Bruford (Feels Good To Me, One Of A Kind and Gradually Going Tornado) and the live album The Bruford Tapes. The two albums Bill recorded with Patrick Moraz (Music For Piano And Drums and Flags) have also been re issued through Winterfold.
Again, as Bill Bruford said in 2003 at the launch of the label: “Winterfold is going to do the colder guitar music that I did generally from 1977 when I started releasing records of my own through to Earthworks in about 1985/6. That comprises two groups primarily that I ran in those days one was under my own name called Bruford and the second was a duo with a Swiss pianist called Patrick Moraz. The group was Moraz Bruford and we released a couple of CDs then too. The Bruford group really started with what we thought was fancy instrumental rock. We thought we could take the power of rock music further with some more interesting harmony. So that is what Winterfold is for, primarily the Bruford music and the Moraz Bruford music.“
As with the Introduction To Summerfold release this album will act as a primer for the Winterfold catalogue and presents the other side of the coin as it were to Bill Bruford's musical achievements over the last twenty-eight years.
Live in Tokyo -
On reflection, keyboardist Patrick Moraz and drummer Bill Bruford had obvious commonality. By the mid-1980s both were Yes alumni, both were tiring of big-stadium excess, both had roots and influences that lay closer to jazz than progressive rock, and both were looking for a more flexible music, stripped of the trappings and associated costs of their regular day-jobs.
The duo recorded two albums of drum-and-keyboard based music, suffused with upbeat invention and peerless skill. Both Music For Piano And Drums (1983) and Flags (1985) were well received and retain a resonance that still rings loud and true, and is being discovered anew by an eager audience for whom it is as fresh and exciting as it was for those who discovered it the first time around.
The original albums are now accompanied on Winterfold Records by In Tokyo, an A+ quality 1985 recording from Laforet Museum, Akasaka, Tokyo, and the only official Winterfold live album available from the duo. 10 tracks capture Moraz-Bruford at the peak of their game. As commentator Sid Smith remarks:
‘Though there's an undeniable jazzy vibe to much of what's going on, there's also more than a hint of the symphonically-inclined prog-rock in which both players cut their professional musical teeth. Principally this is most evident in the framework provided by Moraz's likeable and accessible tunes. Though clearly well-structured they offer plenty of opportunities to display the lightning-quick reactions and sharp dynamics best exemplified on the racy epic and original album closer, Hazy.'
In Tokyo offers an excellent opportunity to re-assess the group's work, which remains, as Smith points out, ‘marvellously spiky and capricious...closer to the jazz-based material that Bruford would explore more fully in Earthworks a few years later.'
