| Track: | Rating: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Age Of Information | | | | | |
| 2. Gothic 17 | | | | | |
| 3. Joe Frazier | | | | | |
| 4. [square root of] q.e.d. | | | | | |
| 5. The Sliding Floor | | | | ||
| 6. Palewell Park | | | | | |
| 7. Plans For J.D. | | | | ||
| 8. Land's End | | | | | |
Shortly after the release of Gradually Going Tornado, Bill Bruford ran across Steve Hackett, his former partner from 1976 live incarnation of Genesis. There was nothing terribly unusual about this meeting. No plans for future collaborations were discussed (as far as I know), and neither man has described it as a turning point in their careers. In fact, it was probably just one of those brief, face-to-face encounters that every professional musician experiences on a regular basis. And yet, the fact that Bruford & Hackett would run into each other at this stage in their respective careers seems more than a bit appropriate.
As Hackett tells the story in the Bowler/Dray Genesis biography, the two musicians were in similar financial straits at the time, each facing ongoing difficulties in paying the bills for their touring bands. Both seem to have been uncertain about their musical futures, accordingly. And, in fact, neither man's band was destined to last much longer. Hackett retreated from band activities in 1981 with the appalling Cured, recorded solo with Nick Magnus; his live band struggled onward for a little bit longer before giving up the ghost. For his part, Bruford was soon to rejoin the reformed King Crimson, ending the Bruford band's tenure for good.
But there was another piece of irony behind this meeting, in that both Bruford and Hackett were in a sort of artistic limbo by 1980. Hackett, having released the excellent Spectral Mornings the year before, was touring for the Defector album at the time. This work had some high spots, and was by no means a disaster ... but it still was a clear step down from his previous work, and boded ill for the future.
And that brings us to Gradually Going Tornado.
After leaving King Crimson in 1974, Bill Bruford had drifted briefly between a number of bands (Gong, National Health, Genesis, Pavlov's Dog), before recording his first solo album, the excellent Feels Good To Me (1978). He then joined UK, taking part in their first (and best) release, and then wisely leaving before John Wetton and Eddie Jobson turned the band into the prototype for Asia.
Following this, his semi-eponymous quartet recorded One Of A Kind (1979), which, if not quite at the level of Feels Good To Me, was still pretty damned close. Bruford and bassist Jeff Berlin (not yet the star virtuoso that he is today) provided for an incredible and unconventional rhythm section, while guitarist Allan Holdsworth and keyboardist Dave Stewart contributed soaring melodic passages. All told, the music was the perfect bridge between the pure progressive rock of King Crimson, and the jazz-pop sensibilities of the Canterbury scene. Bruford's career seemed poised for continued artistic success, accordingly.
So, what happened to make Gradually Going Tornado a relative disappointment?
The first blow was Allan Holdsworth's departure. Always something of a temperamental figure, Holdsworth left the band before they were able to record their live release, The Bruford Tapes (1980). Stuck for a top notch replacement, Bruford replaced him with John Clark -- who, in a nice touch of English humour, was described as "the unknown John Clark" on the album's release (were Bruford from Canada, he might've referred to him as "John Who?"). Clark subsequently proved capable of performing in much the same style as Holdsworth, but not at quite the same level. It probably isn't fair to cast all the blame on his shoulders, but there's little doubt that the band would've been better served by Holdsworth's talents.
Then, Jeff Berlin decided that he wanted to sing. Worse, Bruford (or someone at EG records) decided to let him. Bruford's albums had featured vocals before, of course -- Annette Peacock had lent her inimitable style to Feels Good To Me, and the Gaskin/Parsons duo had made an ephemeral appearance on One Of A Kind. The difference in these cases, though, is that Peacock, Gaskin and Parsons actually had voices that were worth hearing. Berlin, while possessing some technical ability, also possessed a voice that was ... well, boring and colourless. Of Berlin's four vocal parts on the album, only one ("Age Of Information") can in any respect be called a success; "Gothic 17" and "Plans For J.D." come off as flawed, and his cloying efforts at swing-jazz on "The Sliding Floor" are simply annoying.
Third (and perhaps tied in with Berlin's vocal inclinations), the material on GGT is rather more poppish than on Bruford's previous works. This isn't necessarily a strike against the album, of course -- indeed, its Canterbury roots almost necessitate some poppish touches on the work. But when the streamlined form has a direct impact on the material, it's almost invariably going to be negative, and such is the case here.
Such were the strikes against GGT before the album's recording was even finished. They weren't enough to completely sink the project, thankfully; there's a fair bit of good material on the album, which ultimately overshadows most of the bad. That said, anyone interested in exploring Bruford's solo projects would be hard-pressed to find a less appropriate introduction than this.
*
As mentioned above, "Age Of Information" is the one Berlin vocal track which sort-of works, mostly because his restrained, cocktail-jazz approach isn't particularly disruptive to the music -- this is very much a piece in the Canterbury tradition. All of the musicians fulfill their parts well, and even Clark gets in a half-decent lead towards the end. Still, this seems less than what the lineup was capable of.
"Gothic 17" is a creepy number, telling the story of a mentally unstable child suffering from impulses towards violence. The narrative is nicely balanced by a guest cello accompaniment, and the verses are bookended by some dark leads from Stewart & Clark; there's enough lyrical tension here to make up for the song's deficiences. These, in turn, are as follows: Berlin's singing seems rather inept, and the structure of the track doesn't really change after the second verse (which, considered in the light of the compositional style on One Of A Kind, is disappointing).
"Joe Frazier" is a bit of an odd detour. Years later, Jeff Berlin would suggest that this track didn't really belong on the album -- he had intended it to be more of an American soul track, and emphatically had not composed it with Bill Bruford's style of drumming in mind. This suggests that Berlin might not be the best judge of his own material. The track seems a bit out-of-place, but succeeds by virtue of the fact that it develops from something simple to something fairly elaborate. The track, in fact, can be heard as the gradual adjustment of Berlin's main theme into something which fits into the overall ethos progressive-jazz band. [Berlin would subsequently release another version of this track on his solo album, Pump It!. It wasn't as interesting, ... and the next track was a tribute to Rush.]
The first half of the album ends with "[square root of] q.e.d", a good- but-surprisingly-unfocused instrumental number which features Dave Stewart in a more central role. A jazz-rock groove forms something of a "centre" for the piece at about two-and-a-half minutes in, and the performances are exceptional (Bruford himself shines throughout the track). Still, there's something a bit odd about these musicians playing on something this "open".
"The Sliding Floor", as already noted, contains some truly awful singing on Berlin's part ... which is a bit of a shame, as the actual composition isn't so terrible as that. The jazz-rock riff which dominates the track deserved different vocal chords, clearly.
Things finally start to pick up to Bruford's normal quality levels with "Palewell Park", an understated "English jazz" piece which seems to have been derived in part from Miles Davis's "Blue In Green". Berlin and Stewart provide stunningly affecting performances on this number, which doesn't feature a single drum beat [how many other drummers could/would compose a work of this sort, I wonder?]. One might observe that this piece provide a curious look forward to Bruford's collaborations with Django Bates.
"Plans For J.D." (ie. Judgement Day) is another pop-jazz number, and not a particularly good one at that. The performances aren't flawed in any significant way, but it's extremely disconcerting to hear Bruford, Berlin and Stewart coming up with something this ... banal. There's a certain element of Canterbury charm hear, but it ends up spreading rather thin.
Dave Stewart's "Land's End" ends up being the best track on the album, a ten-minute number which hails back to Stewart's time in Egg and National Health. The musicians seem confident of themselves in this number (making for an odd contrast with "q.e.d."), and the Canterbury, jazz and rock elements flow together perfectly. Gaskin and Parsons add brief vocal cameos on the track, which ultimately seems rather like a token glimpse into the richer pasts of the individuals in question.
And such we have Gradually Going Tornado. Can it be described as a good album? Possibly, but the mere fact that the question has to be asked is a sign that something wasn't right in the band's constitution at the time. Bruford, Berlin and Stewart were musicians from related but fairly distinct backgrounds -- when they joined together, the results could be magic (and frequently were). GGT, however, suggests that the combination had run its course by 1980. It is possible that the quartet could have bounced back with a better follow-up; it's much more likely, though, that the group broke up at the right time.
And then came Discipline ...
(review originally posted to alt.music.yes on )