Memory is such a weird thing. <\/p>\n
For example: I\u2019m certain I bought this album in high school\u2014the cover image is burned into memory, sitting on the shelf in my teenaged bedroom where I would display the cover of the LP on my turntable. And it makes perfect sense that I would have picked it up, given my passion at that point for all things Yes or Yes-adjacent. <\/p>\n
As a founding member of the pioneering British progressive rock group, Bill Bruford had drummed on some of my favorite albums of the era, including The Yes Album<\/i>, Fragile<\/i>, and Close To The Edge<\/i>, as well as Yes bassist Chris Squire\u2019s superb 1976 solo album Fish Out Of Water<\/i>. So of course I would have taken a chance on Bruford\u2019s first-ever album as a bandleader.<\/p>\n
However! <\/p>\n
The truth is that I went into this review with no memory whatsoever of Feels Good To Me<\/i> beyond its cover image and a vague impression of disorientingly different music. This suggests an outcome that I don\u2019t recall but nonetheless feel confident is true: I listened to the album and it shot straight over my 14-year-old head like an arrow launched from a longbow. Ummm, this doesn\u2019t really sound like \u201cHeart Of The Sunrise\u201d\u2026!!<\/i><\/p>\n
No, my much younger self, it doesn\u2019t. It doesn\u2019t even sound much like Bruford\u2019s primary focus immediately after leaving Yes, his gig with the even more musically adventurous King Crimson. If, at that point in my life, I had known a single thing about Tony Williams or \u201970s-era Miles Davis or Brand X, there might at least have been a flicker of recognition as to what Master Bruford was up to here, but as it stood, it seems likely that I was thoroughly flummoxed by the music coming out of my speakers.<\/p>\n
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of its 1977 release, Bill Bruford revisited Feels Good To Me<\/i> and, with help from fellow Crim veteran Jakko Jakszyk, gave the master tapes a fresh scrub and remix, delivering the nicely packaged reissue that recently came into my possession. To be honest, I\u2019m still a bit flummoxed by this album, but I can definitely appreciate the context and the quality of the musicianship better now. So: off we go.<\/p>\n
For his first official solo outing, Bill Bruford called together a superb assemblage of musicians. First to join up was keyboardist Dave Stewart\u2014the Canterbury Scene guy who played in Uriel with Steve Hillage, not the Eurythmics guy. Next came the remarkably versatile bassist Jeff Berlin, followed by world-class guitarist Allan Holdsworth, soon to become Bruford\u2019s bandmate in UK. Supplementing the core four were Kenny Wheeler on flugelhorn(!) and Annette Peacock on vocals.<\/p>\n
After years of being regarded as a \u201cjazz-influenced\u201d drummer who plays progressive rock, on Feels Good To Me<\/i>, Bruford goes full-on jazz-rock fusion, taking his crack band on one dizzying, electric ride after another. The prog side of his musical lineage comes out mostly in the three pieces featuring Peacock\u2019s vocals, where the metaphysical poetry of the lyrics and Peacock\u2019s unpredictable, hybrid spoken\/sung vocal approach counterpoints the music as much as it complements it.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cBeelzebub\u201d rushes out of the gate with a tricky, searching line embracing percussion, drums, bass and keys. Soon, Holdsworth enters and leads the group through an angular, wonky \u201cchorus\u201d and solo segment; every time you think they might stick with a particular groove, it evolves again. \u201cBack To The Beginning\u201d opens quietly before abruptly diving into a probing riff that introduces Peacock\u2019s otherworldly vocals. She doesn\u2019t sing so much as invoke the song, a mysterious priestess attempting to enchant her followers, in between spiraling, vertigo-inducing Holdsworth solos.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeems Like A Lifetime Ago\u201d is presented in two parts; the first is a sort of lilting lounge-jazz number with Peacock emoting over smooth, steady backing punctuated by Wheeler\u2019s first appearance on flugelhorn. Part Two sees Peacock offer an opening incantation before the band launches into an extended, knotty jam full of shifting time signatures and particularly energetic and precise work by Berlin and Holdsworth. Finishing out side one of the original album, \u201cSample And Hold\u201d spotlights co-writers Bruford and Stewart in particular, another restless, angular, entertaining number.<\/p>\n
Kicking off side two, the four-minute title track contains multitudes, initially featuring Stewart\u2019s bright keys, punctuated by dissonant blasts from Bruford and Holdsworth, before it morphs around 1:50 into a darkly grooving jam. \u201cEither End Of August\u201d takes a more deliberate pace, an airy number again featuring Wheeler\u2019s flugelhorn, as well as extended, evocative, sometimes squirrelly soloing from Holdsworth. <\/p>\n
In the final quarter, \u201cIf You Can\u2019t Stand The Heat\u2026\u201d opens with Bruford, Stewart and Berlin all running wild, trading volleys until Holdsworth joins in. Things take a nightclub jazz turn on \u201cSpringtime In Siberia,\u201d a subdued number that\u2019s basically a 2:54 duet between Wheeler\u2019s flugelhorn and Stewart\u2019s piano. And finally, \u201cAdios A La Posada (Goodbye To The Past)\u201d finds Peacock returning to essay her own lyric, essentially a dozen variations on \u201cWow \/ What a wonder is this life.\u201d The music on this nearly nine-minute closer is more interesting than the lyric, a turning-twisting, often urgent and notably progressive jam.<\/p>\n
The liner notes essays crafted by Sid Smith and Richard Williams for this 2017 reissue are helpful in explicating the context and intentions of the album\u2026 which feels rather necessary on an album that\u2019s full of dense, shifting rhythms and a mystifying mix of instrumental and vocal music, the former challenging and occasionally thrilling, and the latter honestly puzzling most of the time.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m glad that Bill had a good time making Feels Good To Me<\/i>\u2014he\u2019s an outstanding performer with a remarkable resume, and a true believer. And if what he does on this particular album may work better for some in his audience than others, well, isn\u2019t that just the nature of art? Sometimes you experience art and love it without hesitation, sometimes you can\u2019t stand it, and sometimes you find yourself thinking \u201cWow, that\u2019s really well done\u2026 but it\u2019s not for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think we all know where I ultimately landed\u2014north of my 14-year-old self, but south of pure delight. And so it goes\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[11112],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-47237","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bruford","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47237"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}