Havana Cuba. — In this month of May that has just ended —there are contradictions about the exact day of his birth, in 1943, in Glasgow, Scotland— one of the most influential and revolutionary rock musicians would have turned 80: Jack Bruce.
As a bassist, along with guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker, he was a member of the legendary group Creamthe first of the so-called power trios.
Jack Bruce (John Symon Asher, his real name) was a multi-instrumentalist with a strong academic background. He played the piano, bass, guitar, and cello. In his music, he combined elements of blues, jazz and symphonic music with rock.
From the virtuoso performance of Jack Bruce in Cream, the guitar-bass acquired greater relevance in rock. It is not surprising then that many prominent bassists of the 1970s and 1980s cited Jack Bruce as their main reference and inspiration.
Cream, with the long solos of its members, generally improvised, in the manner of jazz, revolutionized rock music. And this was mainly due to Jack Bruce, who was the author of most of the group’s original songs, including White room and The sunshine of your lovethe most successful.
Cream it lasted only two years. Geniuses like Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker couldn’t cohabit for long in the same group without collisions. In particular, relations between Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker were lousy.
About the separation of CreamEric Clapton, who was a kind of mediator between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, would write many years later, in his memoir Clapton, the autobiography (Broadway Books, 2007): “We had lost direction. I was fed up with virtuosity, which was an excuse to display our individualities. Any sense of unity that we may have had when we started was gone. We didn’t know how to relate. We shunned. We no longer socialized or shared ideas. We would meet on stage, play and then each one took their own side. I think if we had been able to hear each other, Cream would have survived, but at that point, she was already out of reach. We were immature and unable to put aside our differences. Maybe a little more rest now and then would have helped.”
Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker would take more than 35 years to play together again. In May 2005 what seemed like a miracle happened: Cream He gave four concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, London, and in October three at Madison Square Garden (New York).
at those concerts Cream it sounded like before, even better, but they would never meet again.
Silver Rails, recorded in early 2014, would be Jack Bruce’s last album. On this album, which in my opinion is the most coherent of his solo albums, he displays astonishing creativity and energy in a man with seriously failing health and who only had months to live.
Jack Bruce died on October 25, 2014 of cirrhosis of the liver. He was 71 years old.
OPINION ARTICLE
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