The Jack Bruce Memorial Play List

Jack and Charlie Mariano go Raga in the studio in 1976 - Parvati's Dance from Mariano's Helen 12 Trees album

Soprano Saxophone/Nadaswaram : Charlie Mariano
Bass : Jack Bruce
Drums : John Marshall
Percussion : Nippy Noya
Piano, Electric Piano, Synthesizer [Moog] : Jan Hammer
Violin : Zbigniew Seifert



Other tracks from the album - if some of it sounds Mahavisnu Orchestra-ish it's because of the presence of Jan Hammer and because it was highly fashionable to sound this way at the time.

http://youtu.be/hIMCUZm5jK0

http://youtu.be/H77jdTCtA_4

Jack with Graham Bond, Ginger Baker, and Dick Heckstall-Smith in 1965.

The Graham Bond Organization - Hoochie Coochie Man

Is this getting boring?

There is so much, and I haven't really even gotten started - I have just been focusing on stuff that is possibly less well known to anyone other than truly hardcore Bruce fans. Like Jack says in the Things We Like group clip above, he was up for the challenge of playing with anyone who would have him - and with varying degrees of success he could play anything. If we continue, where should we go next? Jack's own extensive and largely overlooked discography/videography (including Cream), Zappa, Robin Trower, Leslie West, Rory Gallagher, Ulf Wakenius, Billy Cobham, etc, etc. Jack was ever so wide ranging and extremely prolific.

There is also so much stuff that I cannot post because it is not available on line. For example, I cannot find his stuff with Linda Ronstadt and Carla Bley - Jack and Linda sang the roles of characters in Bley's Jazz opera, Escalator over the Hill.

houseisland said:

There is so much, and I haven't really even gotten started - I have just been focusing on stuff that is possibly less well known to anyone other than truly hardcore Bruce fans.

Click to expand...

Wow. Just, wow. And thanks.
If anybody'd ever asked me if I knew what album featured Bley, Ronstadt and Bruce, I woulda figured they were yankin' my chain.

OK. Let's try some more things from Jack's Things We Like album, which I have just been listening to LOUD on my stereo.

BTW, I got it wrong above - this was recorded in 1968, 1968! It would be a year, maybe a couple of years, before people like Miles Davis, Miroslav Vitous, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, etc were really doing similar things. John McLaughlin was still in England. He and Dave Holland and others had been experimenting with this kind of music, and DeJohnette had seen them. DeJohnette had told Miles about McLaughlin and Holland. Miles had not recorded Bitch's Brew, yet.

Ginger could have sat in on these sessions. How about Eric, eh?


Sam Enchanted Dick - a medely of Milt Jackson's Sam Sack and Dick Heckstall-Smith's Rills Thrills.

http://youtu.be/JHY8WYfzZgE
Mel Torme's Born to be Blue

http://youtu.be/WL1nxsBp-3k
Bruce's Ballad for Arthur

A friend of Scottish ancestry and I have a plan to have a Jack Bruce single malt wake soonish, pooling the resources of our record collections and indulging in some serious mourning.

Jack and The Golden Palominos, Silver Bullet from the GP's Visions of Excess album

Voice and Harp - Jack
Guitars – Jody Harris, Richard Thompson
Bass – Bill Laswell
Drums – Anton Fier
Voice - Syd Straw



Jack sings The Animal Speaks with the Palominos, a 12" single B side version - same sessions as the album above but the album version featured John Lydon

http://youtu.be/NfRIGQGR2T0

A Kip Hanrahan piece entitled Jack and The Golden Palominos from Kip's Desire Develops an Edge album, featuring Jack (voice), John Zorn, Anton Fier, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Arto Lindsay, Jody Harris and John Stubblefield

http://youtu.be/pZagsLO2D4Q

Another Kip and Jack collaboration, God is Great from Imagining New Orleans



with Don Pullen, Allen Toussaint, Robby Ameen, JT Lewis, Charles Neville, Henry Threadgil, Anthony Carrillo, Ray Anderson

Kip and Jack again, ...then she turned so that maybe...

http://youtu.be/DbJuetDArJg

with Don Pullen, Milton Cardona, Robby Ameen, JT Lewis, Richie Flores, Anthony Carrillo, Leo Nocentelli, Alfredo Triff, Chocolate Armenteros, Chico Freeman


Kip and Jack again, the Desire Develops an Edge Band, Two (Still in Half Light) segued with Jack's Boston Ball Game

http://youtu.be/XUEWyuoET8Q

with John Stubblefield, Milton Cardona, Giovanni Hidalgo, Andy Gonzalez, Steve Swallow, Ignacio Berroa, Arto Lindsay, Charles Neville, Chocolate Armenteros, Maro Rivera, Anton Fier

A 1968 interview with Bruce. Interestingly, he goes on about pretty much exactly what Ted Green talks about in one of his seminars, posted elsewhere here - Johan Sebastian, bass, and harmony.



I don't think Ginger and Eric follow it all.

Jack with John Surman, and Jon Hiseman live at BBC Radio, 1978, Fifteen Minutes Past Three



Jack with John Surman, and Jon Hiseman live at the BBC, 1971, Jack's Gone
http://youtu.be/4Nj3WspfGRM

Jack with John Surman, and Jon Hiseman live at BBC Radio, 1978, Ten to Four
http://youtu.be/usfNfKyLyHw

Jack with the Mike Taylor Trio, 1967, Just a Blues



Mike Taylor - Piano
Joh Hiseman - Drums
Jack - Bass

All the Things You Are from the same sessions

http://youtu.be/lYyBBvmu1zQ

Note: there is some confusion whether the bass player here is Jack or Ron Rubin. Jack had been Taylor's primary bass player but Cream had started up. Jack returned for the studio sessions. It sounds like Jack to me. Rubin contributed only ocassionaly to the album.

Jack as a member of Rocket 88, backing an old mate, Alexis Korner, on St. Louis Blues in 1979. Note the other old mate on drums.



Alexis Korner - Guitar
Ian Stewart - Piano
George Green - Piano
Bob Hall - Piano
Jack Bruce - Bass
Charlie Watts - Drums
Colin Smith - Trumpet
John Picard - Trombone
Dick Morrisey - Tenor Saxophone

Jack and Charlie as member of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated on BBC Jazz Club, July 12 1962



Alexis Korner - Guitar, vocals
Cyril Davies - Harmonica, vocals
Dick Heckstall-Smith - Saxophone
Dave Stevens- Piano
Jack Bruce - Bass
Charlie Watts - Drums

Jack with Hungarian drummer, Leslie/Laszlo Mandoki, also with Ian Anderson, Al Di Meola, etc. - Daydream



Willie Nelson would fit in here.

Jack with the Man Doki Soulmates - Al Di Meola, Randy Brecker, Nick van Eede, Bill Evans, John Helliwell, Chaka Khan, Bobby Kimball, Greg Lake, Peter Maffay, Chris Thompson - You're the Voice (Alan Parsons Project)

Jack's 1977 album, How's Tricks, is a total gem. It flows seamlessly for the most part. There is only one song out of place on the album, a tune by guitarist, Hughie Burns, on which Burns sings - not a bad song but not one that fits on the disk. The album passed almost entirely unnoticed, peaking at 153 on Billboard's charts. Yet it is a great album. The problem is that Jack is sui generis. Where does he fit between the arbitrary plastic genre dividers in a music shop rack? Is the album rock? Hmmmmm. Is it Jazz? Hmmmm. Is it blues? Hmmmm. Is it pop music? Hmmmmm. Is it show/theatre (Brecht) tunes? Hmmmm. Is it 20th century art/classical song? Hmmmmm. As Larry Coryell has observed, Jack is a composer - Coryell didn't refer to him as a singer, a bass player, a member of Cream, or a rock musician - he called him the Scottish composer, Jack Bruce. Jack's works often have orchestral-like movements that change, flow and develop. There may be affinities to a certain genre, but the work will change and go somewhere quite different. There are harmonic peculiarities. Key changes. Unusual middle 8s or more. Go back to the Cream records and actually listen to the tracks between the hits - there is some seriously unusual stuff there. Just where does it all fit? Unfortunately there wasn't a category of music called Jack Bruce.

Unlike Clapton, Jack couldn't turn his eccentricity/talent off and confine himself to commercial, but well-crafted/well-done, pedestrian radio-friendly pop/rock fare - often good stuff but a major underemployment for the full range of Clapton's talents. When Jack tried to be normal, whatever that may be, the results were things like the disastrously bad Jet Set Jewel album.

There are only two tracks available from How's Tricks on Youtube, the lead offs from side one and side two respectively. Both are great, I think. But .... radio play? Even FM radio play? Just where do they fit?

Without a Word



How's Tricks

http://youtu.be/C3_HYD1ax_0

Line up


Jack: Bass, harmonica, lead vocals
Hughie Burns: Guitars, lead vocal on "Baby Jane"
Tony Hymas: Keyboards, vibraphone, vocals
Simon Phillips: Drums, glockenspiel, vocals

Three pretty art songs from Jack's Harmony Row album, 1971. The album did not even chart. It is reported to be Jack's favorite among his work.

So how do we classify these three songs? Do we need to?

Folk Song (home studio version)


Folk Song (album version)
http://youtu.be/t1fvqPsbn7I

Can You Follow
http://youtu.be/WSiGu-DbBdM

There's a Forest
http://youtu.be/7xBPTIWNXoE

Old Jack in a similar style to the songs above, from a BBC Scotland program.

Child Song

Jack as a member of Manfred Mann. Pretty Flamingo in the studio.



I don't thing Jack took this gig too seriously.

One from Jack's 1974 album, Out of the Storm, another almost entirely overlooked gem. The recording of the album was apparently problematic - too many druggies in the same studio at the same time, perhaps. The album peaked at 160 on Billboard, sold poorly and got little if any radio play. Critics liked it, though. Same old, same old. Where does the music fit?

One appears to be the only song from the album on Youtube, although a number of other titles from the album are performed in the Old Grey Whistle Test episode above.

Keep It Down from Out of the Storm, as well.