Althouse: Goodbye to Jack Bruce.

October 25, 2014

Goodbye to Jack Bruce.

The Cream bassist has died, at the age of 71.

Here's an hour of him showing you how to play the bass:

33 comments:

FullMoon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/25/14, 4:52 PM
eddie willers said...: Disraeli Gears is a Desert Island Disc.

RIP; 10/25/14, 5:17 PM
Bob R said...: My first left-handed instrument was a Gibson EB3. I had to have a bass like Jack Bruce. A great musician and an inspiration.; 10/25/14, 5:29 PM
madAsHell said...: Well.....I guess Ginger Baker wins that bet.
RIP Mr. Bruce.; 10/25/14, 5:44 PM
chickelit said...: Spoonful, nearly 40 years after they first recorded it. Just as good.; 10/25/14, 5:45 PM
David said...: God bless the drummers, the hamsters in the wheel of rock and roll music.; 10/25/14, 6:04 PM
George M. Spencer said...: "The light's shinin' through on you."

Sunshine of Your Love

"The lyrics were written by Pete Brown, a beat poet who was friends with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. He also wrote lyrics for "I Feel Free" and "White Room." Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce wrote the music.

Jack Bruce's bass line carries the song. He got the idea for it after going to a Jimi Hendrix concert. When Kees van Wee interviewed Bruce in 2003 for the Dutch magazine Heaven, Kees asked him which of his many songs epitomizes Jack Bruce the most. At first he was in doubt whether he should answer "Pieces Of Mind" or "Keep On Wondering," but then he changed his mind and opted for "Sunshine Of Your Love." Because, Said Bruce, "It's based on a bass riff. And when you enter a music shop this is the song that kids always play to try out a guitar."

Pete Brown wrote the opening line after being up all night working with Bruce and watching the sun come up. That's were he got, "It's getting near dawn, when lights close their tired eyes."

Cream's biggest hit--#5 in the U.S.; 10/25/14, 6:07 PM
Anonymous said...: The second musical sequence on this video is a killer.

Bruce and his Cream band-mates set a very high standard of musicianship in the pop rock world of 1966-68.; 10/25/14, 6:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Never cared for Cream. Understand that the members are talented, but the results inevitably sounded to me like someone shaking a cardboard box full of metal shavings. Also: Hippie Damage.; 10/25/14, 6:53 PM
Seppo said...: Jack Bruce produced a masterpiece album released in 1971, Harmony Row. It had deep and innovative songs and terrific musicianship, with some of the best guitar playing of Chris Spedding's long session man career. I listen to it frequently and pick up something new each time I hear it, which to me indicates great artistic accomplishment.

Songs for a Tailor was more commercially successful, but Harmony Row was very special.

Jack was a complicated and often difficult character, and he will be missed. RIP; 10/25/14, 6:53 PM
chickelit said...: Jack was a complicated and often difficult character, and he will be missed. RIP

He was famous, but not as famous he wished to be. I hope he never reached the heights of assholery revealed by his bandmates in this brief video link.; 10/25/14, 7:42 PM
Alex said...: Seppo... interesting I bought Harmony Row more than 10 years ago, listened to it a bit back then and never since. I've got to dust off the MP3s.; 10/25/14, 8:04 PM
Unknown said...: I always thought some of Jack's best work was when he joined Leslie West and Corky Laing after Mountain broke up. I still can't get enough of the "Why Don'cha" album which was the first release by West, Bruce and Laing; 10/25/14, 8:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Chickelit, I listened to that and I have to agree with the Creamers- Bonham and Moon are not in the class as Ginger Baker. Neither could swing to save their life. But yeah, Ginger is blowing pretty hard, here.; 10/25/14, 8:58 PM
Popville said...: One word: Badge.; 10/25/14, 8:59 PM
Who Am Us Anyway? said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/25/14, 9:06 PM
chickelit said...: Chickelit, I listened to that and I have to agree with the Creamers- Bonham and Moon are not in the class as Ginger Baker. Neither could swing to save their life. But yeah, Ginger is blowing pretty hard, here.

Forget about jazz and swing. Baker is asking to be judged at a higher level for Cream drumming. The animus is all jealousy-driven. It's ugly and hubristic. He will die the poorer for it.; 10/25/14, 9:08 PM
chickelit said...: Oh and I think Bruce had the wherewithal to stay out of such pettiness.

RIP; 10/25/14, 9:10 PM
jr565 said...: I'm more impressed by guitar players but he was pretty damn good as a bassist. And also had a great voice.; 10/25/14, 9:42 PM
Who Am Us Anyway? said...: Thanks for posting this, Ann. I thought I'd seen every video there was of Bruce but I'd never seen this. Really great stuff.; 10/25/14, 10:31 PM
furious_a said...: One of the YouTube clips of Cream's Albert Hall farewll concert said the Cream members were 23 (Bruce?)25 (Clapton?),and 29 (Baker?) when Cream broke up. So much great for such young men and run of ink,two years.; 10/25/14, 10:41 PM
eddie willers said...: "The light's shinin' through on you."

Sunshine of Your Love

"The lyrics were written by Pete Brown, a beat poet who was friends with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. He also wrote lyrics for "I Feel Free" and "White Room." Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce wrote the music.

After reading of his death here, I went to Wikipedia and wound up on the page for Sunshine of your Love.

A little further down in the article than you reprinted, it said that Clapton based the opening of his solo on Blue Moon.

I started humming it in my head and, by cracky, it was!

BLUE_MOON
YOU_LEFT_STANDING
ALONE

The solo starts at 2:02 on this youtube link.

Sunshine of your Love; 10/25/14, 11:04 PM
Bob R said...: Forget about jazz and swing. Baker is asking to be judged at a higher level for Cream drumming.

I think that's the point. When someone says about a rock musician, "Oh, he's great. He's a great jazz player," they might as well say, "He's a great pastry chef." Zepplin, Who, and Cream were rock groups with the same instrumental format and the work of Moon, Bonham, and Baker in those groups have to be judged by their service to the songs those groups played. All three did a pretty damned good job. We can argue who was the best rock drummer and who was the biggest asshole. There is only one of those categories where Baker is the consensus winner (though not by a lot.); 10/26/14, 5:53 AM
Douglas B. Levene said...: I saw Cream play the Back Bay Theatre in Boston on April 5, 1968. They opened with a 17-minute Sunshine of Your Love.; 10/26/14, 8:30 AM
Paul said...: "Spoonful, nearly 40 years after they first recorded it. Just as good.'

Hardly.

First, Clapton could never play a Strat worth a damn. His tone playing an SG through Plexis was inspirational back in the day. His melodic lines and solo development still stand up fifty years later. He sounds little better than an amateur at as blues jam anymore.

I think it was the money and heroin that finished him, but whatever it was he was never any more than ordinary since the early seventies and has coasted entirely on his fame, and the adoration of millions of people who really can't hear.; 10/26/14, 12:21 PM
chickelit said...: @Paul: I'll take your word for it.

I never noticed nor cared which kind of guitar EC played which is odd because I care about such combinations in other guitarists.

I think that Clapton was the first to plug a Gibson Les Paul into a Marshall Amp, at least, according to Wiki: link; 10/26/14, 12:32 PM
Will Cate said...: Heh -- I misinterpreted the post as "teaching you how to play the bass" which, of course, it's not really; 10/26/14, 1:09 PM
Paul said...: chicklelit, go back and listen to Freash Cream and the tone of his guitar on NSU or Sleepytime.

Magic.

Then compare it to his more recent Strat into Tweed Fender sound....; 10/26/14, 2:40 PM
Anonymous said...: I think that's the point. When someone says about a rock musician, "Oh, he's great. He's a great jazz player," they might as well say, "He's a great pastry chef."

Bob R
That is not at all what I am saying. Jack Bruce says -very clearly- in this excellent video, that he and Ginger Baker were intentionally giving Cream a jazz rhythm section, and that's what made them so good. In effect, they were playing what later became known as fusion. Its true that Bonham and Moon weren't even trying to do that, and in fact they played with distinction in their respective groups, but the fact remains that they could never play at GB's level.

And yeah, Ginger Baker is pretty obnoxious in this clip. But back in the late sixties, he was known to be a head case. In any event, I think its always best to trust the art, not the artist.; 10/26/14, 2:53 PM
Jupiter said...: Listen to Baker's drumming on Sunshine. Then try to imagine it with a straight rock boom-chick. Guy was a genius. Head case, too, I guess. Watching them in the reunion video, you can tell they really love playing together.

Bye-bye, Jack, and thanks so much.; 10/26/14, 4:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Here is some killer Jack Bruce:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N0V6Qe5i-g#t=21; 10/26/14, 9:36 PM
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Bob R said...: That is not at all what I am saying. Jack Bruce says -very clearly- in this excellent video, that he and Ginger Baker were intentionally giving Cream a jazz rhythm section, and that's what made them so good. In effect, they were playing what later became known as fusion. Its true that Bonham and Moon weren't even trying to do that, and in fact they played with distinction in their respective groups, but the fact remains that they could never play at GB's level.

I realize they've always tried to sell that, but I've never bought that, and I (mistakenly) interpreted your comments in that way. First, I don't buy that jazz is generically at a "higher level" than rock, you like one style or another as a matter of taste. Yes, jazz is technically harder, but twelve tone classical is even harder and it sucks. Technically harder does not equal higher level. Second, I don't buy the "Cream was better than Who and Zep because Bruce and Baker had better jazz chops" argument." If you want to argue that Cream was a better rock group, point me to the tracks and I'll happily listen. But the proof is in the music, not in their previous experiences. Third, if they want to be evaluated as jazz or fusion players, they might try comparing themselves to, say, Weather Report. But comparison of the jazz chops of Bruce and Baker to Jaco and Evans would make for a very short, sour discussion.; 10/28/14, 8:34 AM