SKF NOTE: For me, this 1984 Simmons Drums ad captures Bill Bruford‘s pioneering drumming spirit — plus it’s a memorable photo. Always a contemporary player, with a knowledge and love of drumming history, and a fearless curiosity. Even when Bruford’s experiments fail my ears, my musical tastes, I still have the greatest respect for his musicianship.

“There is no regular set-up,” Bill Bruford says in the Bill Bruford’s Equipment sidebar to his February 1984 Down Beat interview. Indeed! And like a few other musicians I’ve met, even if Bruford had a regular set-up when interviewed, odds are he’ll change his set-up, at least once, before his magazine interview is published.