Bill Bruford’s Earthworks - Nerve (Quattro Club, Tokyo, 2nd Dec, 1991)

This features Django Bates (keys), Iain Ballamy (soprano saxophone), Tim Harries (electric bass), and myself on tubs, in an early edition of Earthworks. Back in 1991, this sort of music was considered adventurous, even ferocious. More than 30 years later, it’s gentlemanly tempo would be at least doubled by any squad of young firebrands from Brooklyn, and I expect any 14-year old could play the heck out of it, such is the prodigious skill level of today’s young stars of jazz and hip-hop. It would be delivered with a snarl and the velocity of an avalanche. With hindsight, the 1991 version seems polite, almost tame. The world is a tougher place now. The tune is built on a slippery 8-bar drum pattern in 4/4 between kick and snare which gives the effect of walking two bars forward, walking two bars back, walking two forward, and two back again. The tune is played twice round (with omissions second time) - the second time beginning at 1’22” - until the thing falls off a cliff at 2’30”. Towards the end of a