Legendary rock drummer returns to perform with former student

The Peter Roth Trio, featuring legendary prog rock drummer Bill Bruford, will play in Quebec. (Bill Bruford)

Drummer Bill Bruford will walk on the stage as part of the Pete Roth Trio for a Canadian tour beginning next week, 15 years after he retired from touring.

After decades of playing for progressive rock giants such as Yes, Genesis, King Crimson and countless others, the musician felt he had gone as far as he could musically.

In fact, Bruford was so determined he wouldn’t perform that he sold most of his instruments and equipment.

“You know, sometimes if you want to reinvent yourself, you can’t really keep one foot on the shore and one foot on the ocean,” he said. “You know, you kind of must leave the shore to get on the ocean to get to the other side. And there was something very cathartic about selling 300 albums, you know, dozens and dozens of books and records and drumsticks and a lot of equipment.”

During his hiatus, Bruford went on to earn a PHD in music, and not the honorary type.

“I retired from public performance in 2009, and I was casting around for something to do,” he explains.

“Surrey University said they had this other guy called Jimmy Page, guitarist from Led Zeppelin, who was in the Surrey area too, and they’d awarded him an honorary degree, which was great. And they said, would I like one, too? And I said, ‘No, no, thanks. I’d rather study here and earn the degree. If that was possible.’”

Bruford took the assignment seriously.

“And five years later, I emerged with a doctorate, which was great.”

However, like most artists eventually find out, creativity never retires.

Bruford was no exception.

He looked at performing again, and that’s when he came across a former music student of his, whom he had hired as a stagehand decades ago: German-born Pete Roth.

“We listened to Steve Howe and Robert Fripp and Allan Holdsworth and Ralph Towner, and so on [and] then 20 years passed,” he said. “When I met him again later after my hiatus, as it were, I said, I know this guy who played guitar. Maybe he’s improved.”

Unbeknownst to Bruford, Roth had built a solid reputation within a tight circle of followers, performing atmospheric modern jazz fusion to critical praise.

“I was astonished by how mature he’d become in the intervening 20 years,” said Bruford. “We’re just very much on the same wavelength musically.”

The trio is currently rounded up with bass player Stefan Redtenbacker, another veteran of the jazz circuit, who brings a modern, funky tone to the ensemble.

The trio’s set list focuses on Roth’s repertoire and some of Bruford’s past solo work.

But don’t expect to hear his ’70s classics such as Siberian Khatru or Larks’ Tongues in Aspic.

Bruford says the set will likely include a few jazz standards such as Gershwin’s Summertime, but he’s otherwise not interested in revisiting the past.

“I’m not Steve Howe. I don’t know how people can go on doing those same songs. It’s not my way at all. I’d rather be playing, so when I come to Montreal, I’d like to play songs you’ve never heard before.”

For prog rock fans, it matters very little. Bruford can still count on a dedicated fan base that’s followed him for decades, especially in Quebec, which was once ground-zero for any British band playing progressive rock.

“I’m eternally grateful because French Canadians, they were the earliest of early adopters of the kind of English progressive rock that was emerging, and eventually the Northern American states also took to it, but we didn’t get much further south than the Carolinas.”

The Pete Roth Trio will perform at Montreal’s Club Soda on May 29. Few tickets are still remaining.

Other dates include:

• May 27 - TD Music Hall in Toronto
• May 28 - Overflow Brewing Company in Ottawa
• May 29 - Montreal’s Club Soda
• May 30 - Palais Montcalm in Quebec City
• May 31 - The Café du Clocher, in Alma, Quebec