Bill Bruford's Earthworks - Original Sin (Footloose in NYC, 30th May 2001)

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It may not be great for your mental well-being, but sometimes being up against a tight deadline sparks creativity. After a delicate album with Ralph Towner and Eddie Gomez in upstate New York in a cold winter of 1997, Tony Levin and I thought we’d take advantage of some down-time at the studio to start a new band called ‘Bruford Levin Upper Extremities’: B.L.U.E. My drums were there, all set up, ready to roll. We had a great engineer and studio owner, Tom Mark. Tony Levin (bass) and David Torn (guitars) lived round the corner. All we had to do was call (newly-minted megastar) trumpeter Chris Botti up from NYC to join us. And find something to play.

A few years later, Tony appeared at an Earthworks gig at the now defunct NYC club The Bottom Line. (Before stadiums and arenas, in the 70s we played in small clubs with appropriately ironic names: the Bottom Line, the Bitter End, the Road to Nowhere, the Manne-Hole). I thought he might find an Earthworks version of the snaky ‘Original Sin’ entertaining. It was a piece I contributed to the B.L.U.E album. It’s not much more than a slithering riff leading to a middle section, in which the sun briefly emerges from behind the clouds (1’33”), only to disappear again for further slippery soloing at 2’04”.

Generally I prefer to solo – and prefer other drummers’ solos - over some vamp or riff, if only to stop the other musicians from leaving the stage. It gives me something to work off and from. These days, great contemporary drummers tend to focus more on timbre, texture and meter than overt displays of crowd-pleasing technical ability as in, say, the pre-war big band era or classic rock. That’s not to say that unbelievable amounts of technical dexterity are not available when needed. Try anything by Mark Giuliana or Dan Weiss or Karriem Riggins or Greg Hutchinson if you want to know what the future of drumming is increasingly going to look like.

The show from which this track is taken is available in a new, just-released 2CD + 1DVD package called 'Footloose in NYC'. You get almost two hours of concert footage from the Bottom Line, up close and personal, in 5.1 surround sound, with 20 minutes of backstage footage, plus interviews, biographies and discographies, all presented in sumptuous Dave McKean artwork. Available at https://burningshed.com/store/billbruford. Happy holidays!

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Видео Bill Bruford's Earthworks - Original Sin (Footloose in NYC, 30th May 2001) канала Bill Bruford