DURING THE 1970s, JAZZ-ROCK, OR “FUSION”, WAS THE UNIQUELY CREATIVE VANGUARD OF THE MUSIC CULTURE, THE YIN TO DISCO’S YANG. COMPLEX AND INTRICATE RHYTHMS, SOLOS OF VIRTUOSITY, MIXTURES OF JAZZ, CLASSICAL AND ROCK ALL COMBINED TO FORM THE VERITABLE MOUNTAIN THAT MUSICIANS OF VARIOUS GENRES CLIMBED TO ULTIMATELY REACH THE SAME PEAK.
ON THE JAZZ SIDE, YOU HAD MILES DAVIS, TONY WILLIAMS, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, CHICK COREA AND HERBIE HANCOCK. FROM THE ROCK SIDE, BANDS LIKE YES, THE MOODY BLUES, THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION AND KING CRIMSON CREATED A WHOLE NEW WORLD OF SOUNDS TO CONQUER.
ARGUABLY, THE MOST SOPHISTICATED OF THE BANDS WAS KING CRIMSON. CREATED BY ROBERT FRIPP, THE BAND HAD VARIOUS INCARNATIONS IN WHICH THEY MADE ALBUMS OF DARK TONES, STORIES AND COLORS.
ONE OF THEIR ZENITH’S WAS IN 1973-74, WHEN VIOLINIST DAVID CROSS JOINED THE BAND OF FRIPP WITH DRUMMER BILL BRUFORD AND BASSIST/VOCALIST JOHN WETTON TO CREATE CLASSICS LIKE LARKS’S TONGUE IN ASPIC AND STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK. THE COMBINATION OF FREEDOM AND FORM WAS LIKE AN EPIPHANY AT THE TIME, AND THE MUSIC STILL HOLDS UP REMARKABLY WELL.
SINCE THEN, CROSS HAS CREATED AN IMPRESSIVE CATALOGUE OF MATERIAL UNDER HIS OWN LEADERSHIP, AND MOST RECENTLY UNITING WITH PETER BANKS, BESTKNOWN FOR HIS OWN WORK WITH THE JAZZ-ROCK GROUP YES.
THE TWO PUT TOGETHER A COLLECTION OF MELODIC IMPROVISATIONS AWHILE BACK, AND THE RECENT DEMISE OF BANKS CAUSED CROSS TO RE-VIST THE WORK AND FINALLY PUT IT OUT AS AN ALBUM, THE IMPRESSIVE CROSSOVER.
MR. CROSS WAS GRACIOUS ENOUGH TO DISCUSS THE APOTHEOSIS OF FUSION, HIS STINT WITH CRIMSON AS WELL AS HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH BANKS. AS EXPECTED, THE INTERVIEW, LIKE HIS MUSIC, WAS INTRIGUING, INTUITIVE AND ALWAYS WONDROUSLY COGENT.
YOUR TONE HAS CHANGED SINCE YOUR DAYS WITH KING CRIMSON.
I used a different pickup on a standard violin, which was ok for the time, but you always have problems with feedback and getting the thing loud enough. It was quite difficult to work with back then.
Then along came the ZETA violins, which I was using with Peter (Banks), which Jean-Luc Ponty first used to great effect, and I adopted that one. It’s a very effective instrument; a bit harsh in places, but I use something a bit warmer now.
WHAT WERE THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN YOU FIRST SAW OR MET PETER BANKS?
I might have seen him when I say YES many years ago, as we played on the same bill. We were on the bottom of the bill and they were doing university gigs in the UK.
I didn’t actually meet him until I did a tour with his band and mine in 2006. He only lived a mile up the road, he was kind of a neighbor.
My experience with Peter was absolutely delightful.
The first time he spoke to me was when we were about to go on stage and he said to me “We don’t know what we’re going to play! It’s all improvised” like he just thought of the word. It was kind of naïve as to how it came across, but it was more than that, as it had sheer enthusiasm in what he was doing. It was lovely.
I found him as an inspiring individual to be around. I gather he had his ups and downs, but every time I saw him for those dates it was great. It was a lovely band with harmony, diversity and improvisation. He was a joy to be with.
*********
“we were about to go on stage and he said to me “We don’t know what we’re going to play! It’s all improvised” like he just thought of the word”
*********
WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS FOR THE ALBUM?
When we did those gigs together, we said “Let’s get together as soon as we can and do something”. They way things are, that then took four years to get into the same room together. (laughs)
When we finally did it, it was a great experience. He was quite different from many other people because he had this freshness to what he was doing. He seemed to have belief, or faith in that I would be able to follow whatever he did, which was not very well justified! (laughs)
As soon as I would hone in on something, like the key that we were in, he’d be off and change it to move somewhere else. I’d then catch up and he’d be gone again and I had to then hold on to the one note that seemed to be working while trying to conjure whatever part inside of me that could find what the rest of the right notes were to slip back into where he’d gone. Sometimes I did it, sometimes I didn’t.
He was a scoundrel in a way, just playing at the game of it, like “Catch Me If You Can”. It was great.
*********
“he had this freshness to what he was doing. He seemed to have belief, or faith in that I would be able to follow whatever he did, which was not very well justified!”
*********
DID YOU EVER TAKE THE SONGS ON THE ALBUM ON STAGE FOR A CONCERT PERFORMANCE?
No. I regret that we didn’t do more with it or didn’t do it again at the time. It would have been good.
We were both fairly busy, and they were just improvisations. I’ve got a cupboard full of improvisations!
After he died, I couldn’t go back and listen to them at the time. It brought back too many memories of him, and I couldn’t bare to listen to them as he went fairly abruptly and unexpectedly. It made me sad to listen to them, but eventually I did, and I hope that they were worth rescuing. I believe that there is something there worth trying to bring out.
I kind of owed it to him to try to bring out the little bit of magic that we found together.
**********
“He was a scoundrel in a way, just playing at the game of it, like “Catch Me If You Can”. It was great”
**********
WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST THOUGHTS WHEN YOU WENT BACK AND HEARD THE RECORDINGS?
I liked how much of his personality was captured in the music. How much the truth of that day was captured; the way that we came together, and how he fled and I would try to chase him and we’d come together again before arguing musically. He’d kind of assert himself…it was kind of a relationship building all done over a couple of hours.
It was kind of like negotiating in a relationship; who we were as a unit. It’s all there in the music in the duet form, but I felt that it need to be filled out and brought out the way that I think he would have liked. That’s why I took it further and brought the improvisations to producer Tony Lowe who developed it a bit (with guests Pat Matelotto, Tony Kaye and others)
IT SEEMS THAT MANY OF YOUR POST-KING CRIMSON ALBUMS ARE IMPROVISATIONS. IS THIS A RESPONSETO OR RELEASE FROM THE INTRICACY OF THAT BAND’S MUSIC?
No. My David Cross band does well-crafted rock songs, albums like Closer Than Skin, Sign of the Crow and Big Picture have improvisations in them, but they are songs.
Improvisation is not the only thing I do. I still like that balance between improvisation and more formal writing.
ONE OF YOUR UNDERAPRECIATED PROJECTS WAS WITH THE DIALETO BAND WHERE YOU JOINED THEM FOR A CONCERT THAT INCLUDED A LOT OF UPDATED CRIMSON MATERIAL.
They played some of the most original stuff that I’ve heard in some time. They kindly invited me to play on a couple of tracks for their album and come over and do a concert with them It was a great idea.
The whole thing was a great job, putting Bartok in rock; the album has a kind of playfulness which the original folk tunes had. That’s why Bartok took them; they are teasing tunes that kind of come towards you and then run away. They’re familiar, but not quite in a giving and taking way that makes music interesting. It sits in front of you and then hides in a corner before jumping back out at you again.
Bartok was a master of that, and Dialeto really got it and moved it across into rock. I really loved it, and I learned a lot from them. Some of the stuff was very hard for me to play and keep up with, so it was a good education. It was one of the best ideas that I’ve heard in a long time.
Nelson Coelho and the band really deserve credit for what they’ve done.
*********
“I kind of owed it to him to try to bring out the little bit of magic that we found together”
*********
LET’S TALK A BIT ABOUT YOUR STINT WITH KING CRIMSON. HOW DID THE WHOLE THING BEGIN?
I was with a band called Waves; we didn’t do any gigs, we just rehearsed in a café in London, which is where Crimson and Roxy Music had rehearsed.
We approached Crimson’s (EG) management asked them if they wanted to come down, hear us and take us on. They brought Robert down with them, and he heard me play in that band.
We didn’t get picked up by EG management, but Robert came back to me. He was going to do an album with (percussionist) Jamie Muir and he wanted me on board doing it. It was an improv album based on Indian ragas, with Jamie hitting his pots and pans
So we met together and did a kind of dry run of it at Jamie’s house in London. After that, Robert got the idea of re-forming Crimson. The next time we got together for a session was with Bill (Bruford) and John (Wetton) as well, which turned into King Crimson in a sudden and surprising way.
It was just one of those things. He heard me play and thought I might be of some interest to him and it moved into a new King Crimson. I didn’t audition for a band called King Crimson.
The fact that John was available and Bill was interested triggered us to stop our first project and going into this new direction.
**********
(Fripp) heard me play and thought I might be of some interest to him and it moved into a new King Crimson. I didn’t audition for a band called King Crimson
**********
WHAT WERE THE REHEARSALS LIKE?
I always had to have a day job to get by, so I couldn’t rehearse all day, except for weekends. We did six weeks of rehearsals, so it was my fully professional experience. That whole thing of getting up in the morning, rehearsing and coming out in the evening, along with my day job, was new.
I absolutely loved it, and during those six weeks there was a lot of improvisation. We also did a lot of work on tunes and stuff, but we had only a half dozen pieces to show for it by the time we did our first gig. People wouldn’t put up with that kind of productivity today! (laughs) You wouldn’t go on the road today with such little material.
But we knew that we were improvising and that was a large part of what we were doing. We had a respect for that way of doing things, which at that time wasn’t that unusual. It was obviously in the jazz tradition, but there were a lot of bands improvising in various ways. Some of it was fairly off the wall, and other parts more conventional. That was definitely in the air, so to speak.
There was a time when people could be able to feel comfortable on stage and just improvise. After that, improvisation got a bit of a bad name. “Not good enough; not finished” they’d say.
In fact, after that time it got quite a bit difficult to do it if you wanted to do that. I took it for granted that it would carry on the way things were, but actually the people I got in touch with tended to get more conservative and less willing to take those kind of risks on stage.
But that was the joy of what we were trying to do with Crimson; we were engaged in risky business. We would try to play things that would sound nice together, and that’s quite tricky. It’s easy to make ***things that don’t sound nice together (laughs), but you know to improvise something that sounds all right without a formula, pre-arranged chord sequences or melodies is quite tricky, and we dared to try that.
**********
“we had only a half dozen pieces to show for it by the time we did our first gig. People wouldn’t put up with that kind of productivity today”
**********
HOW WAS THE INITIAL AUDIENCE REACTION?
Great. We toured the UK initially, and the audiences there were really open-minded at that stage. That was a really encouraging way to start.
When we got to the States it became more difficult, because the competition was fierce with American bands being insanely good and insanely tight. They really knew what they were doing.
We came across bands in bars playing “Larks Tongues” a lot better than we were doing it. We’d say “How did they do that?” (laughs)
It was a big learning curve for me just to see how good American bands were. That first tour really made me wake up to where we had to be if we were going to move forward with any substance and strength. We all learned from it.
The things that worked in America much better were the rhythm things, when the drums and bass were playing and we were riffing. That was all cool; it didn’t matter what notes you were playing as long as you were rocking.
**********
“But that was the joy of what we were trying to do with Crimson; we were engaged in risky business”
**********
What became more uncomfortable in the States was that gaps in between, which tended to be the areas where I might be heard more, twiddling away quietly with Robert playing some nice lines; the quieter stuff.
But with the more reflective stuff you don’t want to really be in time, because you’re not quite sure what you’re saying, with pauses which were ok, but were harder. We could feel the audience wanting us to get back on the beat.
IS THAT WHY STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK IS A MORE TIGHT AND RHYTHMIC ALBUM?
Yes, I think it was to do with what we learned. John hadn’t been to the States before, so it was a big wake-up call for him and me. We got pushed into a more aggressive direction, and I liked that we were able to do that.
********
“We came across bands in bars playing “Larks Tongues” a lot better than we were doing it. We’d say “How did they do that?” (laughs)”
********
BY THE TIME YOU ALL DID RED, DID YOU FEEL THAT THE BAND HAD RUN ITS COURSE?
We parted on friendly terms. For me, it was that we’d already done five tours in the States. We’d done a lot of touring and I wanted a break from that. It was doing my head in, and I wanted to regroup a bit, but at the time it wasn’t what the others wanted. They wanted to keep going, even looking for another violin player, but it didn’t work out that way.
I’d run my course in terms of gigging at that stage. Part of it was to do with the technology of the violin, as that band got on top of the whole electric thing with the violin, as the ZETA didn’t come out until later. It was hard for me to keep up with them.
*********
“I took it for granted that it would carry on the way things were, but actually the people I got in touch with tended to get more conservative and less willing to take those kind of risks on stage”
*********
IN RETROSPECT, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON BILL BRUFORD?
He was and is an amazing guy. In Crimson he was always supportive, before and afterwards. We did a couple of things together and he was always willing to be searched out for advice.
He went on to get his Phd, his doctorate, which I’m really pleased that he’s done, because he’s a real player. He’s got a strong head on, but with a very powerful feel as well. He plays from the heart. He’s one of the few who can really articulate what he wants to do and the way that he is. Working to get the Phd is a big achievement.
ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT FRIPP AND CRIMSON ARE STILL OUT THERE?
I’m surprised that they’ve got three drummers! (laughs)
We used to talk about that. “Are we going to be around?”, either collectively or not. The four of us would talk about where we’d be in 20-30 years. I don’t think that any of us imagined that we’d still be out there playing that music after all this time. The longevity of pop bands is not much; maybe with jazz musicians. I think it’s really great to play it in these twilight years.
*********
“The four of us would talk about where we’d be in 20-30 years. I don’t think that any of us imagined that we’d still be out there playing that music after all this time”
*********
I ALWAYS FELT JOHN WETTON WAS THE UNDERRATED ONE. WE MISS HIM
We didn’t underrate him. He was the star. A great lead singer and fantastic musician. One of the most annoying people; he never practiced anything. I’d leave the rehearsal with all of this homework to do, trying to get my chops together for the next rehearsal, and he would just look at his fingers, twiddle them around a little bit for about four seconds and say, “Yeah, I got it.” Really annoying.
IN RETROSPECT, IT’S ALWAYS FASCINATING TO NOTICE WHAT THINGS IN OUR LIFE WE OVERLOOKED THAT WE DIDN’T THINK WERE IMPORTANT AT THE TIME, BUT NOW LOOM LARGER WITH THE WISDOM OF AGE.
DID WE APPRECIATE THE MUSIC THAT CROSS AND BANKS CREATED DURING THE YEARS THAT THEY ACTUALLY CONQUERED NEW MUSICAL WORLDS? DO WE APPRECIATE THE CONTINUED EXPLORATIONS THAT PEOPLE LIKE CROSS STILL ACHIEVE, WORKING LIKE MUSICAL MAGELLANS TO DISCOVER NEW WORLDS?
WHAT ELSE ARE WE NOT APRRECIATING DURING THIS TIME OF HAVING OUR FREEDOMS RESTRICTED BY THE COVID VIRUS LOCKDOWN? WHAT DID WE TAKE FOR GRANTED? WHAT WILL WE APPRECIATE ANEW? CROSS REMINDS US THAT THERE ARE ALWAYS PARTS IN LIFE WORTH SEARCHING OUT AND CHANCES WORTH TAKING.