“Great. Really good. What now?” enquires a delighted Bill Bruford at the end of a number What now indeed?[endtease] The residency at the Jazz Café felt fresh and different yet paradoxically recognizable and familiar, suggesting that P1 were in many respects the missing link between 1974 and 1994. Despite Mr. Clueless of Camden interrupting Robert’s first KC-related stage announcement in over 13 years, nothing could take away from the fact that it had been an amazing week of momentous improvisations with the fourth and final evening being particularly strong. This gig represents both a completion and a new beginning as Bill takes his final bow on the KC stage.
We recently discovered that when this gig was first uploaded it was missing seven minutes worth of music – a fact that went unnoticed by all and sundry until the mighty Vargan alerted us to this lamentable omission.
Here’s how it happened.
The four Projekct one shows were recorded by David Singleton onto ADATs, which are effectively three VHS video machines linked together. During the first set, there was a problem with one of these tapes - and during the audience applause after the third improv, the tapes were switched off, and set of tapes from a previous night (which still had some unused space) inserted. After this improv - the original set of tapes were put back in for the remainder of the set.
As Alex ‘Stormy’ Mundy was only uploading night four to DGMLive, he hadn't seen the other tapes - one of which is clearly labelled as containing the "penultimate improv from first set night four" - which has now been restored to its rightful place.
But the bizarre feature of all of this is that the "join", where the machines were switched off, the tapes removed and then not used until some seven minutes later, is completely inaudible. The concert that was uploaded had not been doctored. Anyone with the original download (now a collectable item?!) can listen to the join between the fourth and fifth improvs - somewhere there should be an audible "leap" where seven precious minutes were stolen and put onto a different set of tapes. Call us deaf, but we can't hear it.
