#15 Featured Drummer – Bill Bruford / King Crimson / 1971
Welcome to 1971. After 3 months with Merging Traffic in Little Rock, Atlanta and Nashville, I returned to my home and starting point, Geneva, Florida. My 4 years from 1967 through December / 1970 included gigs on the road and house gigs in Biloxi, Mississippi and West Palm Beach.
I returned to Florida, January - 1971 with a broken heart and failed marriage. Still only 21 years old, I had experienced much.
Arriving in Florida, I began searching for a gig. I was able to play a few temporary gigs but nothing regular or a 5-6 night a week house gig. My total worldly possession’s included my Rogers drumset and Honda 450 motorcycle. I sold the bike and bought a 1967 Volvo 122S.
My friends, The Rakestraw's, John and Linda were in Orlando. John had a semi-regular house gig with a very commercial top-40 band night club group.
Also in the area was my mid 60’s Junior High School buddy, Louis Simmons. I’ve written about Louie and The Rakestraw’s in my book “Notes of a Young Drummer 1966-1969”. Louie was also recovering from a broken marriage like myself. We started hanging out again like the old days.
Early 1971 was an interesting year for me to experience popular bands in Central Florida. These next couple drummer features took place in 1971.
Louie told me about a band playing at the Orlando Jai-Alai fronton called King Crimson. I don’t remember being very familiar with them at the time. I had heard of Yes, but I didn’t own any records by Crimson or Yes. We drove from Geneva/Sanford to the Orlando/Casselberry Jai-Alai fronton to hear this group called King Crimson.
That’s the only time I went to that venue, it was an interesting arena for music. Seating was on the floor. I could see Bill Bruford’s drumset. He was playing a hybrid combination of Hayman and Ludwig with a couple Roto Toms.
I didn’t learn about the chronological members of King Crimson till a few years ago. The band I saw and heard was Fripp, Bruford and David Cross playing violin. I’m sure it was John Wetton, not Greg Lake.
It was an interesting experience to see and hear this band. I was close, a few rows from the stage. Bruford played great. I will say I couldn’t understand why he would leave a major band like Yes to be in King Crimson. I certainly have a lot of respect for him.
Though Bill Bruford was very busy later in years as a drum clinician, I never saw him. I’ve seen many videos and bought the Crimson records he recorded. Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair are my favorites.
The band I saw and heard in 1971 was the ensemble that recorded ”Larks Tongues in Aspic” That’s why I believe it was John Wetton on bass with Fripp, Bruford and David Cross.
This is where it gets personal for me.
The second drummer/percussionist on that record is Jamie Muir. The tone of “Larks Tongues” (the title was authored by Jamie Muir) has many interesting abstract tonalities with Jamie Muir’s creative improvisational percussion.
Bill Bruford has said that Jamie Muir was a great influence on his creative enlightenment as a musician and drummer.
After recording “Larks Tongues” Jamie Muir departed music to become an artist.
In 1981, Jamie Muir recorded Dart Drug with Derek Bailey.
Several of my readers and friends know that I performed and recorded with Derek Bailey. In my conversations with Derek, I regret not discussing his thoughts about Crimson, Soft Machine and those various improvising groups from the early-mid 60’s London music scene. Derek was the creator of the British Improvisation scene. I regret not asking Derek about Fripp.
Viewing recent post on Youtube by Bill Bruford, he seems to be very satisfied with his retirement from music and playing the drums. King Crimson continues to tour. Jamie Muir is reported to be living in Europe.
My 1971 experience to see and hear Bill Bruford with King Crimson is high on my list. That introduction to improvised and composed non-traditional certainly had an influence on my musical expansion towards performance.
In closing, a few “in my opinions” about the group King Crimson.) As I mentioned much earlier, I didn’t become knowledgeable about the lineage of musicians in King Crimson till a few years ago. I wasn’t aware of the band members on the record “In the Court of the Crimson King” till my technology assistants, Youtube and Wikipedia were created.
Now that I know about those players, Greg Lake, Fripp, Ian McDonald and Michael Giles on drums, I can say it may be my favorite.
Michael Giles is a genius on this record.
In my lifetime there have been several bands where the original drummer departed and the group continued. Many times that new drummer will try to sound like or play-like the departed drummer. Sometimes it works, but to me there is always my memory of the original.
Those original drummers are my favorite as they created a template for others to follow. (In my opinion) an example of this would be Gary Husband with those original Allan Holdsworth records. Several great drummers followed him, Vinnie and Chad, but they continued to play within the design of Gary Husband. Another example would be Alan White replacing Bill Bruford. Bill Bruford’s snare drum sound continued to be imitated. What’s my point, you decide.
(On a lighter note) One afternoon I was having lunch during Happy Hour at Arby’s. Over their music system played “21st Century Schizoid Man”. That was probably the most surreal tune I’ve ever heard in a public place. I’ve heard Coltrane and Keith Jarrett at Starbucks, but King Crimson was quite abstract.
The next featured drummer on my list of 100 drummers is #16 of 100 – to be named