Bruce’s early career included stints with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Manfred Mann.īruce’s bass playing had the melodicism of Paul McCartney married to the chops of Charles Mingus. He was actually trained as a cellist at the Scottish Royal Academy of music before falling into London’s nascent blues scene as a bassist.
And then there is the heart break of “Folksong” from Harmony Row with its plaintive organ and yearning melody.īruce was the first virtuoso bass player in rock. “Rope Ladder” was a charge into lyrically surrealist space with words from Pete Brown and drums from John Marshall, who went on to join Soft Machine. Songs like “Theme to an Imaginary Western” were later covered by Mountain with Felix Pappalardi who produced Cream and Bruce.
Bruce had an epic sense of song form then with free-floating rhythms and expansive melodies sung in that choir boy voice yearning to sing the blues. Songs for a Tailor and Harmony Row are brilliant, overlooked albums from Bruce that still sound as innovative, thought provoking and emotional as they did when they came out in 19. While Eric Clapton retrenched into rootsy American rock after the dissolution of Cream and Blind Faith, Jack Bruce went further out, continuing to reinvent the song form, a work he started with songs like “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room. When I heard of Jack Bruce’s passing, the first thing I did wasn’t to grab one of his brilliant albums with Cream, but to pull his first two solo albums (absenting the free-jazz Things We Like album) off the shelf.
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