Jack Bruce

John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce ( born May 14, 1943 in Bishopbriggs, Scotland ) is a Scottish rock, blues and jazz musicians. He mainly plays electric bass, but also cello, piano and harmonica, sings and writes songs. He is best known as a founding member of Cream.

Life

Bruce received a 17- year-old a scholarship for cello and composition at the Royal Scottish Academy Of Music. His early interests were of Scottish folklore, jazz and Bach. Due to the fact that it is less in demand as a cellist in a jazz band, he switched to bass. He played this instrument then in the Scotstoun jazz band. His way of playing bass, benefited from his ( broken ) classical training on the cello. From him comes the saying, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the best bass lines of all time.

Bruce sought early 60s contact with the British blues scene. He played with Mike Taylor, Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated in, the Graham Bond Organization, to which he already contributed their own songs, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Manfred Mann Combo, before he formed in 1966 along with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker Cream. He had in the then novel power- trio line-up, the central role of the bassist and lead singer and also the composer of most songs. Texts steered the English Beat - poet (and later rock musician ) Pete Brown at. The time with Cream, it was she who established the reputation of Jack Bruce as an extraordinary musician. Much like at the same time his colleague John Entwistle ( The Who ), he worked out an equal footing with bass within the band structure of lead guitar. The Jack Bruce sound is grumpy and aggressive. His trademarks were long, put forward on his Gibson EB-3 improvisations in interaction with the other musicians, which was sometimes hard to distinguish yet, what parts came from Bruce and what the guitarist Clapton. Bruce later claimed jokingly that they had at that time so long improvised, that he had difficulty at the end of the solo to remember what song they were playing ("... we'd get to the end of a long improv and I ' d be wracking my brain to remember what the song was! ").

After the dissolution of Cream end of 1968, Bruce played with the New Jazz Orchestra, Tony Williams' Lifetime, Mike Gibbs, Dick Heckstall -Smith, Larry Coryell, and other colleagues from the Jazz range, with Carla Bley in jazz oratorio Escalator over the Hill and for some concerts with Ian Carr's nucleus. From 1972 to 1973 he played together with the ex -mountain musicians Leslie West (guitar) and " Corky " Laurence Gordon Laing (drums ) at the Hard Rock Group West, Bruce & Laing, who released three albums. He brought out a few solo albums, including Songs For A Tailor ( with players like Chris Spedding, Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall -Smith, Harry Beckett and George Harrison), Harmony Row and Out Of The Storm. Early 1977, he presented with Tony Hymas, Simon Phillips and Hughie Burnd together the Jack Bruce band and brought the album How's tricks with this formation out. 1980 tried Keith Emerson, a band with Bruce and the South African singer and guitarist Trevor Rabin together, the attempt failed, however, because Rabin decided for a project with bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White, which later became a new Yes line-up arose.

For the two albums B.L.T. Truce and played Bruce in 1981 together with Robin Trower. In 1994 the album Around The Next Dream under the band name BBM, which he had recorded with Ginger Baker and Gary Moore. Later he was involved in various projects of Kip Hanrahan, and also starred in the Charlie Watts Big Band and Ringo Starr 's All- Starr Band.

In the summer of 2003, Bruce was diagnosed with liver cancer. In September, he died almost at a liver transplant because he was still contracted pneumonia in his exhausted state. In October he was on the mend. In 2005, the health of the musician was so strong that he could participate in multiple Reunion Concerts in London's Royal Albert Hall in May, where he first along with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker in the original cast of Cream classics of his time as played supergroup of rock acclaimed trio. Of these concerts, there is a representative cross-section on DVD ( with recent interviews ). In 2006 he sang at the jazz festival in Frankfurt am Main his songs with the hr-Bigband.

He is with his manager Bruce Margrit, which comes from Swabia, married. They have two daughters and a son and live near London on a large estate.

Discography

Albums

• Songs for a Tailor (1969 )
• Things We Like (1970 )
• Harmony Row ( 1971)
• Out of the Storm ( 1974)
• The Jack Bruce Band Live '75 ( with Carla Bley, Mick Taylor et al, published in 2003 )
• How's Tricks ( 1977)
• Jet Set Jewel (recorded 1978, released 2003)
• I've Always Wanted to Do This (1980 )
• B.L.T. (1981 ) - with Robin Trower
• Truce (1982 ) - with Robin Trower
• Automatic ( 1982)
• Inazuma (1987 )
• Will Power (1989 )
• A Question of Time (1989 )
• Somethin else (1992 )
• Cities of the Heart ( 1993)
• Around the Next Dream ( 1994) - with BBM
• Monkjack (1995)
• The Cream of Cream (1998) - VHS / DVD
• Shadows in the Air ( 2001)
• Rope Ladder to the Moon (2003) - Compilation
• More Jack Than God (2003)
• Seven Moons (2008) - with Robin Trower
• Can You Follow (2008) - Anthology [6 CD Box Set]
• Live 2012 (2012) - published under Jack Bruce & His Big Blues Band
• Silver Rails (2014)

DVD

• Cream - Farewell Concert ( 2001)
• Jack Bruce & Friends - Live ( 2003)
• Cream - Strange Brew (2003)
• Cream - The DVD ( 2005)
• Cream - Inside 1966-1969 (2005)
• Cream - Royal Albert Hall ( 2005)
• Rope Ladder To The Moon 1969 - Tony Palmer's Film about Jack Bruce (2010)