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Earthworks (album)
Earthworks is the first album by Bill Bruford's Earthworks, a jazz fusion band led by drummer Bill Bruford with keyboardist and trumpeter Django Bates, saxophonist Iain Ballamy, and acoustic bassist Mick Hutton. It was released in 1987 on EG Records and reissued on Summerforld in 2005. The album was co-produced by Bruford's former bandmate Dave Stewart. Reception At AllMusic, critic Chris Kelsey gave the album three-and-a-half stars out of five. He wrote, "The best thing about this band is its refreshing ingenuousness; they make intelligent, sophisticated instrumental pop music that doesn't pander in the least." Writing for All About Jazz, John Kelman noted that "Bruford's attraction to the juncture of strict form and freer improvisation, took a giant leap forward with ''Earthworks''," and commented that the group "was unquestionably an ''improvising'' band; more than just a soloist playing over a fixed rhythm section, Earthworks has always been a looser affair, as much about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earthworks (band)
Bill Bruford's Earthworks were a British jazz band led by drummer Bill Bruford. The band recorded several albums for Editions EG, Discipline Global Mobile and Summerfold Records. Earthworks went through several line-ups: in addition to the band's accomplishments as a unit, Earthworks was a training ground for Django Bates, Iain Ballamy, Patrick Clahar, Mark Hodgson, Steve Hamilton and Gwilym Simcock. The final band line-up featured previously established jazz musicians in the form of Chick Corea sideman Tim Garland and veteran bass player Laurence Cottle. In interviews during the band's earlier years, Bruford sometimes compared his responsibilities within it as being similar to those of Art Blakey with the Jazz Messengers, in that he was providing an environment for young British jazz players to gain attention and experience before going on to become well-known players and bandleaders in their own right. The initial version of Earthworks strongly stressed an acoustic/electroni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz Fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll. Jazz fusion arrangements vary in complexity. Some employ groove-based vamps fixed to a single key or a single chord with a simple, repeated melody. Others use elaborate chord progressions, unconventional time signatures, or melodies with counter-melodies. These arrangements, whether simple or complex, typically include improvised sections that can vary in length, much like in other forms of jazz. As with jazz, jazz fusion can employ brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone, but other instruments often substitute for these. A jazz fusion band is less likely to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EG Records
E.G. Records was a British artist management company and independent record label, mostly active during the 1970s and 1980s. The initials stood for its founders, David Enthoven and John Gaydon. The pair signed on as managers of King Crimson in early 1969, during the formative stage of the band and prior to the release of debut ''In the Court of the Crimson King'', with it springboarding their entrance into the record label and music publishing markets. They also signed T. Rex, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Roxy Music to management. Gaydon left the company in 1971 and Enthoven, due to declining health, in June 1977. Samuel George Alder and Mark Fenwick (later managing Roger Waters) took over control of the companies, re-releasing material from King Crimson in addition to new releases from acts such as Iain Ballamy, Bill Bruford, The Chieftains, Earthworks, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Human Chain, Killing Joke, Loose Tubes, Man Jumping, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Elan Sicroff, Toyah Wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dave Stewart (keyboardist)
David Lloyd Stewart (born 30 December 1950) is an English keyboardist and composer known for his work with the progressive rock bands Uriel, Egg, Khan, Hatfield and the North, National Health, and Bruford. Stewart is the author of two books on music theory and wrote a music column for ''Keyboard'' magazine (USA) for thirteen years. He has also composed music for TV, film and radio, much of it for Victor Lewis-Smith's ARTV production company. He has worked with singer Barbara Gaskin since 1981. History Stewart was born in Waterloo, London. Having joined local covers band The Southsiders while still at school, Stewart's musical career began in earnest at the age of seventeen when he played organ in Uriel with Mont Campbell (bass, vocals), Steve Hillage (guitar, vocals) and Clive Brooks (drums). After a residency on the Isle of Wight in the summer of 1968, Hillage left the group to go to university. Uriel continued as a trio, later changed their name to Egg and subsequently re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Bruford
William Scott Bruford (born 17 May 1949) is an English former drummer and percussionist who first gained prominence as a founding member of the progressive rock band Yes. After leaving Yes in 1972, Bruford spent the rest of the 1970s recording and touring with King Crimson (1972–1974) and Roy Harper (1975), and touring with Genesis (1976) and U.K. (1978). In 1978, he formed his own group ( Bruford), which was active until 1980. In the 1980s, Bruford returned to King Crimson for three years (1981–1984), collaborated with several artists (including Patrick Moraz and David Torn), and formed his own electric jazz band Earthworks in 1986. He then played with his former Yes bandmates in Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, which eventually led to a very brief second stint in Yes. Bruford played in King Crimson for his third and final tenure from 1994–1997, after which he continued with a new acoustic configuration of Earthworks. On 1 January 2009, Bruford retired from professional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dig?
''Dig?'' is the second album by Bill Bruford's Earthworks, featuring Django Bates, Iain Ballamy and fretless bass guitarist Tim Harries (replacing the acoustic bass guitarist Mick Hutton). It was released on EG Records in 1989. Reception AllMusic awarded the album 3 stars, and reviewer Robert Taylor called it "a solid effort," stating, "Never one to rest on his laurels, Bruford continued to search for different contexts in which to express his musical and percussive ideas." The authors of ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings'' wrote: "On ''Dig?'' the highlight... isn't the fine original opener... but the arrangement of Tony Hatch's 'Downtown'. Writing for ''All About Jazz'', John Kelman commented: "''Dig?''... finds the group moving... into exploratory territory... Likely a result of the growing confidence that comes from having some history together, the group's interplay is even more vivid." ''Jazz Journals Mark Gilbert remarked: "Earthworks are going in the right directi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz Fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll. Jazz fusion arrangements vary in complexity. Some employ groove-based vamps fixed to a single key or a single chord with a simple, repeated melody. Others use elaborate chord progressions, unconventional time signatures, or melodies with counter-melodies. These arrangements, whether simple or complex, typically include improvised sections that can vary in length, much like in other forms of jazz. As with jazz, jazz fusion can employ brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone, but other instruments often substitute for these. A jazz fusion band is less likely to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Django Bates
Django Bates (born Leon Bates, 2 October 1960) is a British jazz musician, composer, multi-instrumentalist, band leader and educator. He plays the piano, keyboards and the tenor horn. Bates has been described as "one of the most talented musicians Britain has produced... his work covers the entire spectrum of jazz, from early jazz through to bebop and free jazz to jazz-rock fusion." In additional to his jazz work, he is also a noted classical composer (writing both large- and small-scale compositions on commission), theatre composer, and has taught as a professor at various European music schools. As a leader, his bands have included Human Chain, Delightful Precipice, Quiet Nights, Powder Room Collapse Orchestra and Belovèd, and he was also a leading figure in Loose Tubes and Bill Bruford's Earthworks. Early life Bates was born in Beckenham, Kent, England, and attended Sedgehill School. While at this school, he also attended the Centre for Young Musicians in London (1971â ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iain Ballamy
Iain Ballamy (born 20 February 1964) is a British composer and saxophonist. He is considered one of the greatest modern jazz saxophonists. Career Ballamy was born in Guildford, Surrey, and educated at George Abbot School, Guildford, from 1975 to 1980. He then studied Musical Instrument Technology from 1980 to 1982 at Merton College. He took piano lessons from age of 6 to 14. He discovered saxophone in 1978 with three lessons and his first professional gig was in 1980. He played Ronnie Scotts as Iain Ballamy Quartet at age 20. He was a founding member of Loose Tubes in 1984. First recording with Billy Jenkins in 1985, his first solo album, '' Balloon Man'', was released in 1988. One of his closest musical collaborators is Django Bates. During his career he has performed or recorded with a wide range of musicians including Gil Evans, Hermeto Pascoal, New York Composers Orchestra, Carla Bley, Dewey Redman, George Coleman, London Sinfonietta, Françios Jeanneau, Daniel Humair, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mick Hutton
Mick Hutton (born 5 June 1956 in Chester, UK) is a British jazz bassist and composer. Career Hutton is known from the British jazz scene by his work with Harry Beckett (''Pictures of You'', 1985) and with Julian Argüelles, Iain Ballamy, Django Bates and Ken Stubbs ('' First House''), the Chris Biscoe Sextet and Bill Bruford's Band Earthworks. In addition, Hutton worked throughout his career with Alan Barnes, Peter Erskine, Tina May, Jim Mullen, John Scofield, Alan Skidmore, Tommy Smith, John Taylor, Stan Tracey, and Kenny Wheeler. In 2002 he played on Robin Williamsons album ''Skirting the River Road'', and the same year he played in a trio with Martin Speake and Paul Motian (''Change of Heart''). A hand injury forced him to abandon the upright bass. He started working as bass guitarist, percussionist, and synthesizer player and as a composer. He works with his own band of saxophonist Andy Panayi, pianist Barry Green, and drummer Paul Robinson. With his quartet, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Penguin Guide To Jazz
''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, two chroniclers of jazz resident in the United Kingdom. History The first edition was published in Britain by Penguin Books in 1992. Every subsequent two years, through 2010, a new edition was published with updated entries. The eighth and ninth editions, published in 2006 and 2008, respectively, each included 2,000 new CD listings. The title took on different forms over the lifetime of the work, as audio technology changed. The seventh edition was known as ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD'' while subsequent editions were titled ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings''. The earliest edition had the title ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette''. Richard Cook died in 2007, prior to the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
