If Bill Bruford’s Earthworks were to take one of those Ancestry DNA tests, the results would find a direct linage to the Soft Machine song “Feelin’ Reelin’ Squealin,’” because that’s what this wonderful progressive jazz-rock music does: It feels, it reels and it squeals.
Heavenly Bodies: Expanded Collection is the distilled, Bruford-curated 23-track shortbread collection cut from the big and baked 20-disc Earthworks Complete box set. Bruford termed this release (with King Crimson-like alacrity) “a beginner’s guide” to the world of Earthworks. The first disc is a greatest-hits package (which was available some time ago), while the second is comprised of unreleased recordings.
The great William Blake once said, “I must create a system of my own, or be enslaved by another man’s.” Bill Bruford in his autobiography echoes the Blakean sentiment, as he writes: “Money would enable me to stick two fingers up to them and play the music I wanted and with whom I wanted.”
Or more succinctly: “Success meant being able to leave the party when you wanted to.” Our precocious drummer survived Savoy Brown, the big “Roundabout” hit, Chris Squire, Robert Fripp (!), Jamie Muir’s departure, Robert Fripp (!!) again, Alan Holdsworth’s fickle nature, Tony Banks’ perfection, Robert Fripp (!!!) again, again in that Crimson ill-fated double trio, and, of course, a university degree he left behind when returning to the Albert Hall Yes show (where he dropped a stick!).
The astute reader, by now, will have deduced that I will never write for JazzTimes. But to the initiate: Warning! This music seldom stays in one spot long enough to drop its “handsome set of brand-new silver flight cases” (which were gifted to new percussionist Allan White upon Bruford’s abrupt departure from Yes).
The second tune, “Making a Song and Dance,” truly exemplifies the broad brush of this music. The song ebbs into world music and oozes the beauty of the great band Oregon, with its slightly Eastern vibe and very earthy deep forest roots. Ah — but at the 2:40 mark, it crawls like a Lark’s Tongues Bruford drumbeat that just wants to get the heck out of all the Aspic. Iain Ballamy then rides the tune with a warm pulsed sax solo into a rather nice sunset.
Of course, there’s (also) the Italian folk jazz of “Stromboli Kicks,” the “Up North” glance at Canterbury jazz rock, the accordion/sax romp of “Pigalle,” and the wondrous “Temple of Winds,” a fairly aggressive jazz-rock tune, recalling the splendor of (my beloved) Jade Warrior with their cross-pollinated progressive music.
As said, Bill Bruford’s Earthworks made “Feelin’ Reelin’ Squealin’” music. It does have an affiliation with the Canterbury rock scene, with such bands as Caravan, Matching Mole, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Gilgamesh, and Shamal-era Gong (sans vocals). It’s hard to explain, but song titles such as “Giant Land Crabs in Earth Takeover Bid,” “Chaos at the Greasy Spoon, “Esther’s Nose Job,” “Hold Grandad by the Nose,” and even this album’s “Revel Without a Pause” all play well into any Anglophile’s dream of England’s whimsical shores.
Now, the second disc, perhaps shies away from the earlier quirky fusion sound, and swings with a more traditional jazz ethos. Jazz Guy (aka Mr. Radue) called this post-bop. Fair enough. But Jazz Guy (who knows much more about music than I do) said that even within this structure, Bill Bruford and Company were often coloring outside the lines, which is just another way to affirm William Blake’s creed and, well, leave the party.
That said, there are a few favorites: “The Sound of Surprise” also has a very nice Eastern vibe. And “My Heart Declares a Holiday” is a wonderful flute-percussion-keyboard tune, which is really a universe away from the clever fusion of “Stromboli Kicks.” Then “Youth” stops and starts with the hilarity of some name-that-tune wedding dance band’s big crowd pleaser from a ’60s Twilight Zone television episode. This second disc is filled top-quality unreleased free-range stuff.
So, hats off to Bill Bruford and his band. They simply “left the party.” This is music that “feels,” “reels,” and “squeals” all over a sonic playground. And, to get all literary, e.e. Cummings once wrote, “Listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go.” So, truly, Earthworks made music of “that universe next door,” and “created a system of their own,” and were never “enslaved by another man’s” muse.
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