The Jack Bruce Memorial Play List

houseisland

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If you feel like it, post Jack Bruce things you like - joke intended.

The mainstream Cream things are obvious and most everyone will know them, but it is nice to hear them again anyway.

Jack played briefly in Kip Hanrahan's afro/cuban jazz group for a bit, with Ignacio Berroa, Milton Cardona, Arto Lindsay, David Murray, Peter Scherer, and Steve Swallow. There is a touching story about one of the group's gigs where a group of Viet Nam vets wandered in because they had seen Jack's name on the marquee of the club. They were quite perplexed by the music that was presented, and to Jack's embarrassment, they kept calling for Cream tunes. Hanrahan apparently talked to the vets at break, and they told him how important Cream had been to them when they were in service. Hanrahan went and talked to Jack, and after the break, the band spontaneously did afro/cuban versions of Cream's greatest hits.

Anyway, here is one of Jack's tunes that the Hanrahan group did, Make Love, a title also on Jack's Life on Earth Album. I like the interplay of the two bass players: Jack plays low; Steve plays high. And Jack's low falsetto.... well, if you like Jack, I don't need to say anything, do I?

 
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walrus

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Bruce was a very diverse player, which a lot of people don't know about him. Thanks for a great link!

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Over the Cliff

Jack playing upright bass with Dick Heckstall-Smith on reeds and John Hiseman on drums. This is pretty atonal stuff. Jack's Things We Like album, on which this track ended up, was released in 1970, but it was recorded earlier I think. The sessions for the album also included John McLauglin on some tracks. Jack gave him the gig so that John could buy an airline ticket to the US to take up Miles Davis's offer of a job. Think 1969/1970! How many other rock bass players would be so at ease here?

Here's HCKKH Blues from the same album but with John this time.

http://youtu.be/qfvT3ImKdlc
 
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A silly one from the 1965 movie, Gronks Go Beat. Very silly lip-synching.

The Graham Bond Organization: Bond - keyboards and sunglasses; Bruce - bass, harmonica and sunglasses; Dick Heckstall-Smith - holding sax and sunglasses; Ginger Baker - drums and sunglasses; John McLaughlin - sunglasses and silly dancing, I think.

Jack looks so young.
 
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Jack Bruce Band - Old Grey Whitle Test (1975)

Drums – Bruce Gary
Electric Piano, Synthesizer – Ronnie Leahy
Guitar – Mick Taylor
Organ, Synthesizer, Electric Piano, Mellotron – Carla Bley
Vocals, Bass, Piano – Jack Bruce
 

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Rehersals for Carla Bley's Escalator over the Hill

John is noodling a bit. How do you make a guitarist play more quietly? Hand him a sheet of music.
 

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Some time ago, Jack was asked by some Japanese promoters to engage in a bit of experimental musical archeology and put together a band to perform music from the Tony Williams Lifetime group, initially Tony Williams on drums, Larry Young on organ, and John McLaughlin on guitar. This initial group was formed in 1969. Jack Bruce joined in 1970. In response to the request, Jack put together a group, Spectrum Road, with (Burnin") Vernon Reid on guitar, John Medeski on organ, and Cindy Santana-Blackman on drums (Carlos's wife BTW, although she is perfectly capable of standing on her own without the Santana in her name). Although the performance was to have been a one-off, it was a success with critics and the audience, and it lead to requests for further dates. The band toured and recorded.

There are many reasons, good reasons, for not liking the original band or Jack's archeological experiment - I freely confess this without duress of any kind. Lifetime is/was arguably the first fusion group, before fusion had a name, and the music is to my mind a little clunky. But for educated, deep fusion players, listening to Tony Williams Lifetime is like looking at photos of grandparents or great grandparents. Major fans included The Allman Brothers, John Zorn, John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Laswell, Vernon Reid, etc, etc. Laswell, I believe, has spent many hours remastering the original recordings and unsuccessfully lobbying Polydor to re-release them, probably unpaid work. I suggest that you give the links below a listen with an entirely open mind. If nothing else, it will be educational. A trip to the museum.

Here is one of Spectrum Road's performances captured live. The band plays Politician as a closing number here, an encore when I saw the group in Vancouver. It is/was a requisite bone thrown to Cream fans in the audience, but not just this, as it was performed with great enthusiasm by all. In the performance below, John McLaughlin joins the group for Politician. It is interesting to see his take on the piece. He lacks Clapton's slowhand ease with slow, wide vibrato and elastic, sinuous, legato lines that contribute so much to the original, but he is no slouch either. His interplay with Ms Blackman is interesting, too.



Here is a recording of the original band live.

http://youtu.be/A0ntg9vqho4
 
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houseisland

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Smiles and Grins, from a song from Jack's Harmony Row album, here with the Kip Hanrahan group - the afro/cuban version:



Smiles and Grins in the early 70s with the Jack Bruce and Friends group, Chris Spedding on guitar, Graham Bond on keyboards, John Marshall on drums, Art Themen on reeds and orthopaedic surgery, although I think Art sits this one out:

http://youtu.be/HO7aSk7MDUs
 

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1969 - Stormy Monday with Buddy Guy, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Hope & Ron Burton



A strange environment for our little Glasgow lad.
 

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Looks like he was comfortable in any musical environment!

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Here in 1974 in an entirely different environment we find Jack performing Samuel Beckett set to music by the Austrian composer Michael Mantler. Jack could read piano, bass, voice - he could sing in one key and play in another at the same time, as he was sometimes required to do. Here his voice is multitracked into little choirs at times. (Edit: He is obviously not a trained singer; he has trouble with higher notes that Mantler has scored.) This is about as far away from Cream as you can get. It is posted here to show the range he was capable of and that people from many genres of music respected him and wanted to work with him.



Composed By – Michael Mantler
Piano, Organ, Celeste – Carla Bley
Trumpet – Don Cherry
Voice, Bass – Jack Bruce
 
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Jack in the late 80s. Two tracks from his more or less completely overlooked album, Question of Time.

Vernon Reid's solo on the first of the two tracks here, Life on Earth, could be used to strip paint. The second track is Jack's own version of Make Love, which is posted above:

 

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Jack in Ringo Starr's 1997 All Starr Band, with Ringo (of course), Gary Brooker, Peter Frampton, Simon Kirke, and Mark Rivera.

Frampton and Bruce do some cool things together.



Edit: Jack is an ensemble player here for most of the show. Jack bought the EB-1 and had it refurbed by his luthier for this tour because he could not get a nice Paul McCartney sound out of his Warwick fretless. The band also did Penny Lane in other shows. The bass shows up again in the Cream reunion gigs. A friend saw this group in Seattle. He was driving home to Vancouver, and a detour forced him away from the standard I5 route he would have normally taken. Along the detour he saw the theater marquee and immediately found somewhere to park his car, hung around and bought a ticket from a scalper. I was most jealous!
 
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houseisland

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Jack & His Big Blues Band - Estival Jazz Lugano 2011



An older and slightly shakier Jack. Not looking entirely well. A good show nonetheless.
 

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Jack on bass in an LA studio with Mick Jagger (possibly 1973 or 1974) doing Willie Dixon's Too Many Cooks. Others are Jim Keltner on drums, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar, Bobby Keys on sax, Harry Nilsson on backing vocals, and Al Kooper on keyboards. John Lennon produced this track. There is debate over whether he actually plays on it. The track sat in the can for many years before being released.

 

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Jack in the studio with Lou Reed (London 1973), also with Steve Hunter on guitar, Dick Wagner on guitar, Bob Ezrin on piano, Steve Winwood on organ, Aynsley Dumbar on drums, Michael Brecker on tenor sax, Randy Brecker on trumpet, Jim Pierson on bass trombone.

How Do You Think It Feels from Lou Reed's Berlin Aabum.

The film footage is a different Reed band cleverly synched to the studio track.

 

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Jack in the studio with Ellen McIlwaine - I Want Watcha Got, from Ellen's 1981/82? Everybody Needs It album on the relatively obscure Bilnd Pig record label - still in print BTW.

Nice Guild on the album cover also BTW:

ellen.jpg


Better image here: http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=2503318



Ellen, a big Jack fan, had previously done covers of quite a number of Jack's songs. I assume that this would be how she came to his attention.

Her website has this: "Farewell Jack Bruce, you are in the arms of the Angels now..."

http://www.ellenmcilwaine.com/

A woman who wouldn't have trouble getting a date here, I think.

Ellen_3Guilds2.JPG
 
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1987 interview with Eric, interspersed with historical footage of Cream and contemporary footage of Eric and Jack informally goofing around with Cream tunes in Eric's garden - an are we still buddies after all this time thing?

 
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