I happened to be looking straight at Bill Bruford the moment he started playing, kicking off the Pete Roth Trio’s evening at the Hampstead Jazz Club. He had a huge smile on his face. That, I think, is the story of the night.
For over a decade, Bruford had put down the drumsticks. However, in 2022, he started playing again, working with guitarist Pete Roth, who many years before had been a drum tech for Bruford in Earthworks. That was just in a rehearsal space. The band, with basically no publicity, then started playing in front of audiences in 2023. It is only now that the band are doing any serious promotion, and playing a short tour in England. More dates follow in 2025, in the UK and possibly Europe.
The Hampstead Jazz Club is a cramped basement below a pub, with a capacity of 50 people. The trio were squished into the performance space, Roth’s guitar banging against the ceiling when he took it off. Nothing about the performance context would have let on that Bruford once played to packed arenas. And that's how he wants it. Reading his autobiography, it is apparent how unhappy he was before his retirement with all the stuff around the performance, the organisation, the repetitive interviews, the endless business paperwork. But here the band are having fun. (Before the final piece, Roth was talking to the audience: “as you can hopefully see, this is a fun project. We are enjoying ourselves.” Bruford then interjected, “I’m here for the money!”)
The earlier part of the set suggested that Bruford was picking up where he left off: a small acoustic drum kit, playing jazz. This was an improvisational set, using standards plus themes from classical music as a starting point, including Charlie Parker’s "Billy's Bounce", Gershwin’s "Summertime", Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 and Bruford’s own "If Summer had its Ghosts". I keep talking about Bruford, because, let’s face it, that’s why you’re reading this, but this is a trio. All three were intent on each other’s playing. Roth leads the band with dextrous guitar playing, using a variety of effects to go from cleaner playing to something much more fuzzed out. Mike Pratt on bass took solos too and could lead the groove.
Halfway through and we got the first piece by the band, “Trio of 5”. (Roth explained this was the first piece they wrote together. They decided to write a blues, with Bruford suggesting using 5 time.) Two more band pieces followed in the latter half of the set: “Full Circle” (Roth: “at the beginning, Bill had this absolutely killer groove, and the two of them grooving, and I did something probably rather ‘nice’ to it, and Bill said, ‘No, we need a crazy chord there,’ so I hope the chords were crazy enough”) and “Looking Forward to Looking Back”, interspersed with more standards, like Wayne Shorter’s “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum”. It was with “Full Circle” and “Looking Forward to Looking Back” that other elements in the music became more apparent. Roth’s playing became more aggressive. “Looking Forward to Looking Back” is a multi-part piece with echoes of progressive rock to it. Roth in conversation after the show was explicit about how they incorporated prog and other elements as well as jazz.
Roth likened them to a “garage band” and said the group was very new and they were still working out what to do, but that there is “lots of laughing and joking at rehearsals”. They are having fun, and you will to if you go see them.
I saw the show with Simon Barrow: check out his review for Edinburgh Music Review.
The Pete Roth Trio, with Pete Roth (electric guitars), Mike Pratt (electric bass) and Bill Bruford (drum kit). Set: "Billy's Bounce" (originally by Charlie Parker), uncertain (possibly something by Chopin), "If Summer had its Ghosts", "Summertime" (originally by Gershwin), improvisation on the largo movement of Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "Trio of 5", another Charlie Parker piece, "Full Circle", "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum" (originally by Wayne Shorter), "Looking Forward to Looking Back", unidentified.
