Jack Bruce, Cream bassist, dead at 71
The virtuoso instrumentalist and singer helped create the template for the rock power trio, but also was a standout in jazz and other styles.
www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/oct/25/jac ... -obituary/
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jack Bruce, the singer and virtuoso bassist who earned international fame in the 1960s as a member of the pioneering rock power-trio Cream, has died at the age of 71. The cause was liver disease, according to a statement released by his family in England, where he died Saturday at his home in Suffolk.
"It is with great sadness that we, Jack’s family, announce the passing of our beloved Jack: husband, father, granddad, and all-round legend. The world of music will be a poorer place without him but he lives on in his music and forever in our hearts."
As a member of Cream, Bruce sang and wrote or co-wrote such classics as "Sunshine of Your Love," "White Room," "Politician" and "I Feel Free." Those songs were later covered by such diverse artists as David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and jazz vocal giant Ella Fitzgerald, who transformed "Sunshine of Your Love" into something beyond even Bruce's imagination.
Cream performed in San Diego during its brief tenure. In 1974, Bruce was featured on "Apostrophe," a landmark album by former San Diegan Frank Zappa.
In Bruce's very skilled hands, the electric bass became a lead instrument and his worldwide influence as a bassist continues to be felt to this day. With Clapton and Baker blazing away alongside him in Cream, Bruce helped introduce extended, jazz-inspired improvisation to rock music. In the barely more than two years the trio was together, Cream sold 35 million albums worldwide and created an enduring musical template that would profoundly inspired such future bands as Black Sabbath, Van Halen and scores more on both sides of the Atlantic.
Commenting on Twitter, Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler wrote: "So sad to hear of Jack Bruce passing. My biggest influence and favorite bass player. Thank you, Jack. RIP."
Former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters was also a big admirer of Bruce, whom he once described in a Rolling Stone article as "probably the most musically gifted bass player who's ever been."
And, speaking to U-T San Diego Saturday afternoon, fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Derek trucks of the Allman Brothers said of Bruce: "He's a big one to lose. He's one of those figures (whose passing) makes you start thinking that his generation of musicians is leaving us now. When guys of his caliber start going, who replaces someone like him? I don't know who's come along since Jack Bruce that can replace him.
"He was a dynamic character. If you were in the same room with him, man, you knew it! You just don’t meet a lot of people like that who have that amount of energy and personality. He was rock 'n' roll bass, personified."
Even before he co-founded Cream in 1966 with guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker, Bruce had made a major impact on the music scene in England and beyond. His pre-Cream credits include working with such notable bands as Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, the Graham Bond Organisation, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Manfred Mann. Prior to that, he played upright bass in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra in his homeland.
Bruce was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on May 14, 1943. He grew up in Canada, the U.S. and various parts of the United Kingdom, attending 14 different schools along the way. As a teenager he earned a scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, where he studied jazz and composition. He moved to London at the age of 16 and his professional music career quickly took root.
Bruce's 1969 solo debut album, "Songs for a Tailor," remains one of the accomplished fusions of jazz, blues and rock of its era and still sounds fresh today.
His 14th and most recent album, "Silver Rails," was released earlier this year. He discussed the album in April with Billboard magazine.
"I thought it was going to be really hard to come up with songs that worked and that I liked, but it turned out to be very, very natural and I just found it was so easy to write," Bruce said. "I used the album 'Songs For a Tailor' as a template and I kind of listened to that and I based the kind of atmosphere and the feeling of the songs on 'Silver Rails' on that, so it's kind of (like) bookends, if you like."
In the late 1960s, Bruce became a charter member of Lifetime, the proto-jazz-rock-fusion band founded by Miles Davis drummer Tony Williams. In 1972, Bruce co-founded the power-trio West, Bruce & Laing with two former members of the Cream-inspired American band Mountain. In 1975, Bruce formed a short-lived band with jazz great Carla Bley and former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor. In 2008, he helped lead a Lifetime tribute band that teamed him with Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, organist John Medeski and drummer Cindy Blackman, who is now the wife of former Tijuana guitar-slinger Carlos Santana.
After overcoming drugs in the late 1970s, Bruce formed a new band in 1980. It teamed him with fusion drum great Billy Cobham of Mahavishnu Orchestra fame, former Colosseum/Humble pie guitarist Dave "Clem" Clemson and former Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band keyboardist/guitarist David Sancious. That group opened its 1980 U.S. tour with a show at SDSU's Montezuma Hall, but disbanded shortly thereafter.
A series of other bands and albums followed. In 1997, Bruce did a tour as a member of former Beatle Ringo Starr's All Starr Band. He performed in San Diego with Starr and the group at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, where he earned loud cheers when he took over on lead vocals for several Cream classics.
Cream was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Cream in 1993, where the band performed publicly for the first time in 25 years. It was a well-deserved victory lap for Bruce, Clapton and Baker, all three of whom had spent time battling heroin addiction.
"We were all addicts at one time or another. It's amazing we're still alive," Bruce said in a U-T San Diego interview in the early 1990s.
Bruce was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2003 and underwent a liver transplant that same year. Although his body initially rejected the new liver, he eventually bounced back and was on stage performing by the following year. In 2005, he rejoined Clapton and Bruce for a few Cream reunion concerts in London and New York.
The explosive music Cream made together reflected the often volatile off-stage relationship between Bruce and Baker, who at one point threatened to kill the bassist.
In his 2007 autobiography, Clapton wrote of the band: "We were also suffering from an inability to get along. We would just run away from one another. We never socialized together and never really shared ideas anymore."
Bruce is survived by his wife, Margrit, four children and a granddaughter. No funeral arrangements have been announced as yet.
Jack Bruce dies...
Moderators: StevieG, dANdeLION, lucimay
I think fans of Eric Clapton think of Cream as Clapton's band.michaelm wrote:It kind of annoys me that Clapton is remembered more for Cream than Bruce, but I think Jack Bruce was far more the heart of Cream than Clapton was.
Very underrated bassist too - he played a lot of stuff that was definitely not rock music, yet made it fit into the rock music format.
RIP
Fans of Cream think of Cream as Jack Bruce's band.
I grew up listening to Cream; they are Dad's favourite band. He has all of their officially released albums and live concerts. For his 50th birthday I got him a super-rare promo pressing of Fresh Cream, with an extra track.
RIP Bruce. He was one of the first great rock bassists. Paving the way for John Paul Jones, Flea, Les Claypool. RIP.
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