Bill Bruford’s Earthworks - Beelzebub (Live In Santiago, Chile 2002)

Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: This ‘song’ was the first that I wrote for the first album I produced back in in 1978 called ’Feels Good To Me’. Along with ‘Hells Bells’ it became one of the ‘Bruford’ band’s signature tunes into the 80s, and stayed with us through all the editions of that group. It resurfaced in the last couple of years of Earthworks’ existence in the noughties at the behest of saxophonist Tim Garland, who had grown up with the sound of those songs ringing in his ears. Beelzebub’s transition from heavily amplified near-rock to the jazz instrumentation that you’re hearing here definitely gives it a fresh flavour, especially with the bass clarinet as lead voice. While the performance might have benefitted from a decent grand piano, I really like the dynamic light and shade going on in Tim’s soprano saxophone solo (1’52” – 3’00”), pretty much absent on the original 1978 version. My favourite recording of this piece is by the same musicians, plus acoustic grand, in the controlled space of Livingston recording studios in London – it appeared as a bonus track on Earthworks’ ‘Random Acts of Happiness’ (2004). In fact, live performance is what this whole YouTube Channel is all about – people doing things with, and in front of, other people with musical instruments in hand. I can’t remember anyone saying “let’s film this recording session”, unless you were the Beatles or Spinal Tap. In a recording studio, that would have been considered too intrusive. but a documentary filming of, for example, the making of King Crimson’s ‘Red’, or Yes’ ‘Close to the Edge’, would sure have settled a lot of arguments and misconceptions from the Commentariat, but it was never going to happen. Ironically, at a time when the value of the individual performer – drummer, bassist, tuba player – seems under threat, perhaps the content of this and similar Channels will, in half a century, offer a picture of how it was back at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries. If you’re 16 years old now, these performances will probably seem to have come from the Dark Ages. When AI can do it all, what will these videos tell us about the world we lived in back then? And the world we might shortly live in when AI actually does do it all? “If music be the food of love, play on”. #billbruford #drummer #paistecymbals #drumsolos #earthworks #jazzdrummer #kingcrimson #yes #tamadrums