Recorded in July, 1979 at a Roslyn, New York club for radio broadcast, The Bruford Tapes shows just how inventive the group could be. Featuring material culled from Feels Good to Me and One of a Kind, they may have wanted for Holdsworth’s unique style, but they more than made up for that in sheer energy and a surprising looseness. Despite complex arrangements, this was clearly a playing band, and it’s possible that the absence of Holdsworth—whose perfectionist tendencies can sometimes get in the way of his letting loose and surrendering to the music—may have actually worked to the group’s advantage.

At this point in his career, Bruford’s role is more supportive—albeit in a way that certainly never renders him invisible. But more than his playing, his early albums were notable for his emergence as a writer. And, as he would do in future Earthworks incarnations, he took advantage of the compositional skills of his bandmates—in this case Stewart, whose long-form writing had already defined the sound of Canterbury groups including Egg and Hatfield and the North. Still, with Bruford’s signature tight snare drum and dazzling polyrhythmic abilities, he may have been more of a fixed timekeeper for this band than future projects, but what a timekeeper. No other drummer could have approached these pieces with the same élan vital. Listen to earlier Hatfield and the North compositions by Stewart, with Pip Pyle behind the kit�”the compositional lineage is clear, but the complexion is entirely different.

Clarke may be more generic, but he’s also more raucous. His contributions to the lithe Bruford/Stewart composition, “Sample and Hold” and Bruford’s more ominous “Fainting in Coils,” which segues into the obliquely-funky “Back to the Beginning” are filled with a rock and roll fury that more than makes up for his less innovative harmonic sense.

Berlin seemed to emerge out of nowhere when he first appeared on Feels Good to Me, although he actually began his career in his native United States backing singers including Esther Phillips and Patti Austin. It’s likely, however, that Bruford first encountered Berlin on Story of I, by another ex-Yes alumnus, Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz; but for those not in the know, it was with Bruford that he emerged as a serious contender. Sometimes it’s more a matter of timing and luck, but one wonders if Berlin—a dexterous player with far more than a passing acquaintance to jazz harmony—might have garnered the same attention as fellow fusioners Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke, had the planets been more serendipitously aligned. Certainly his solo on Bruford’s “Travels With Myself—and Someone Else” is as fleet-fingered and imaginative as anything his counterparts on the west side of the Atlantic were doing. And his ability to juggle a more conventional bass role with one that found him an equal melodic partner with Stewart and Clarke is almost unparalleled.

The real treat, though, is Stewart. While his playing with Egg, Hatfield and the North and National Health was never less than uniquely compelling, he had his own perfectionist tendencies to contend with. Here he’s more unencumbered, and proves himself to be a remarkably inspired improviser. His piano solo over the staggeringly-complicated riff that forms one part of “Sample and Hold” demonstrates, like Berlin, a skill at navigating a constantly-shifting harmonic backdrop that is typically only seen with the best jazz players. And yet, for all Stewart’s depth, he completely avoids the kinds of harmonies more typically associated with jazz—one reason why he’s been sadly overlooked by the jazz intelligentsia.

Progressive Rock? Jazz Fusion? Jazz-Rock? Bruford’s 1970s band was all of these things…and none of them. And The Bruford Tapes, with its combination of high volume intensity, detailed long-form writing and reckless improvisational abandon, does nothing to assuage those looking for easy categorization. It is, however, as fine an example as you’re apt to find of the kind of unrestricted exploration and cross-pollination once seen on major labels, but now more often relegated to the small independents.

For those who are not familiar with the follow-up album, Gradually Going Tornado, the bonus track—a live version of “The Age of Information” from that release—will come as a big surprise, with Berlin stepping up to the microphone. A sign of the band moving in another direction—perhaps a bid for radio play—that some balked at, but one that represented no kind of compromise.

John Kelman, www.allaboutjazz.com