brandx@ihtnt.UUCP (01/23/84)
Has anyone seen the new downbeat magazine? It's got Bill Bruford on the cover. For those of you who are too young to remember, Bruford was a founding member of Yes. He played with them until shortly after Close to the Edge (arguably their best; I prefer Relayer). Bruford has some interesting things to say about Yes. With attitudes such as theirs, it's very surprising they got as far as they did. 1) Bruford claims that during his entire tenure with Yes, they never played an informal (read: improvised) note. For one thing, he notes that they just weren't very good musicians (he thought he was joining a jazz group). He says they would discuss whether the bass player would play an F and after that would he play a G. 2) He also says that because Jon Anderson came from the club scene, Yes was overly interested in entertainment. This is the shocker; he says that Yes was modeled after the Fifth Dimension. 3) Yes would spend hours deciding what to do to sound different. Apparently the goal was not musical creativity. They wanted to sound different so that they would get noticed and become famous. While I still enjoy Yes' music (I even like some of the new stuff), it's now apparent what motivated them to go from the high of Relayer, to the depths of Tormato and Drama. Wouldn't it be nice if every band that was interested in "becoming famous" were as creative as Yes?
twiss@stolaf.UUCP (01/25/84)
Howard Weisberg misinterpreted some of his quotes from the recent Downbeat. He says... (paraphrased) 1) Bruford denies any improvisational aspects of the band. Bruford says the musicians weren't very good. That the bass player (Squire) would play the agreed upon F and then play a G (implying that he was too stupid to play the F. Well, Howard, the real quote on the top of page 18 says... "Yes wouldn't play a note without a committe decision." This is obviously is an exageration to point out the planning in Yes. This doesn't necessarily mean that NO improvisation took place. And even if it didn't, that is not necessarily bad. The quote about "bad musicians" actually reads (from page 17) like this... "the musicians in those days weren't very good". This refers to musicians in general, not Squire and Anderson specifically. And as for the last part about F and G, this quote also comes from the top of p. 18... "we'd..decide whether the bass player would play F,and when we'd all agreed on that, we'd decide whether the next one would be G and so on." This doesn't mean that Squire couldn't remember to play an F, merely that the whole band was deciding on the progression of the piece (I don't know how well versed you are in music theory you are, but the difference of one note-esp. in the bass-can alter the character of a whole chord and even the key that the piece is in). You then say... 2) Anderson came from a nightclub scene and was overly interested in entertainment. Yes was modeled after the 5th Dimension. Well, as for the nightclub bit, how many musicians do you know that DON'T come from nightclub gigs at one point of another? Overly interested in entertainment? That appears NOWHERE in the article (unless I missed it in which case I will humbly submit to enlightenment). And the 5th Dim. part: this doesn't mean that Yes was trying to imitate this other group as your article implies, merely that Yes wanted to do happy, upbeat music that people liked (and don't flame me about that because everyone (pop or not) wants their music to be liked). Finally... 3) Yes' goal was not creativity, they wanted to sound different and become famous. This is pretty wild extrapolation. The mere fact that they wanted to do something different PROVES their creative drive!!!!! As for their motive of fame...SO WHAT. Every band wants that. It just depends that some bands do it by conforming, some by creativity. Brian Eno may not want to be played on the radio station, but he sure as hell doesn't want to be ignored!!!!! Howard, please don't misquote the magazine and please don't make such wild inferences. I agree with you that Yes isn't the most creative band in the world and I think they have produced some real insipid music at times, but I'm afraid you made the wrong deductions from the Bruford article. Tom Twiss ...!ihnp4!stolaf!twiss flames welcome