Bruford - Borstlap: Two Left Shoes (Bruford - Borstlap: In Concert In Holland, 2004)

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Musicians are frequently in the forefront of change: politically (Rock against Racism, Live Aid, political campaigns) and socially, with diversity and inclusivity as unspoken elements of any international performer’s career (Charles Hazelwood’s Paraorchestra, Sly and the Family Stone, Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra). We rub shoulders with diversity and are well aware how difference engenders the creative spark.

You don’t have to know someone well to pick up an instrument and play with him or her. If s/he can play, and you can join in, you are already on a collaboration to who-knows-where; one of the great joys of music making. Music can be performed without ‘preparation’, other than in the sense that you have been preparing all your working life for this and similar moments. For Michiel Borstlap and I, it’s the water we swim in. But how do I know we’re seeing the same movie in our heads as the music develops? I don’t know, but I know I need to trust.

I was fooling around a bit with this 5/8 cowbell groove in the early 2000s; it eventually settled in a song called Footloose and Fancy Free. I introduced it here, but somewhere it morphed into 6/8 to accommodate the bright piano theme at 1’41”. The drums have a powerful role in shaping and fashioning the music. When they start, stop, add space, remove space, whisper or roar - these have big implications for the people you’re trying to play with. (See for example, the mood change at 5’24”).

Everything Michiel and I do on our respective instruments will consciously or subconsciously affect our next series of choices as the music grows organically. It might be telling a simple one-dimensional story, or a whole complicated narrative ark like here. Much of this is beyond conscious control. You just have to buckle up and trust your intuition, trust your experience and check you’re not wearing two left shoes.

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