Bill Bruford was a founding member of Yes through the years 1968-1972, and while with the band recorded five albums, each of which was more successful than its predecessor. When Bill left Yes in 1972 for King Crimson following the release of “Close To The Edge”, there were those who concluded that he’d taken leave of his senses.

But it proved an astute musical move. When King Crimson’s enigmatic leader Robert Fripp decided to split the band after three tumultuous albums and move on to other projects, Bill moved to playing countless sessions, and was also briefly a member of the bands National Health, Gong and, more famously, Genesis, where he played alongside Phil Collins, who had just stepped up to the microphone following the departure of Peter Gabriel. Bill was the drummer in the live Genesis situation and was with the band for the majority of 1976 while the band toured their album “A Trick Of The Tail”.

Since then Bill has developed as a full time jazz drummer, composer, and bandleader, and his group Earthworks has been turning heads internationally for 20 years. The two-volume Video Anthology of Earthworks splits the band’s career to date into two separate decades, roughly marking its transition from an electronic to an acoustic outfit. Volume 1 represents the work of the later and current “acoustic” editions of the band in the 2000s, and Volume 2 mostly represents the “electronic” origins of the band in the 1990s.

Anthology Volume 2 – the 1990s

This 85 minute DVD is the second in a two volume anthology of previously unreleased concert footage of Bill Bruford’s Earthworks, one of  the longest lived, best travelled, and most original jazz quartets. This volume chronicles the band’s progress through the 1990s from its electronic start to its acoustic renaissance; volume1 does the same for the 2000s. The group was originated as a vehicle for Bruford’s unusual and innovative use of electronic percussion, and did much to challenge perceptions about what a drummer should, or should not, be doing in jazz.  Filmed on tour in Germany 1991, Japan 1991, and Bulgaria 1999, Earthworks continues to offer a platform to the brightest and best young players, and has become a “potential model for the 21st century Jazz mainstream” (Chicago Reader).