Fond farewell to a music legend—songwriter, vocalist, and one of the most influential bass players to ever stride the earth. Jack Bruce, certainly best known for his lead role in the trio that defined “supergroup” (pardon to those who mistakenly assumed Mr. Clapton was at the helm of Cream)—he wrote, sang, and strummed the heartbeat for the seminal songs that signaled the maturity of rock and roll. His importance in music history cannot be overstated.
Born in Bishopbriggs, Lanarkshire, Scotland, just north of Glasgow, Bruce started with jazz bass in his teens, and was eventually granted a music scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy. Later he was turned out from that apparently staid and stuffy establishment for the crime of continuing to play jazz.
He followed a well-trod path for the musically gifted in 1960s Great Britain: from jazz to the blues, and finally rock and roll. This put him in the orbit to which he belonged, and in proximity, naturally enough, to the comparably talented percussionist Ginger Baker, and six-string strummer Eric Clapton.
The three performed as Cream for three years only, disbanding in 1968. They produced just four studio albums. All had distinguished and prolific careers in the post-Cream years. But I think Messrs. Baker, Clapton, and the late Mr. Bruce would affirm our assessment that their collaboration, brief though it was, was magical, transformative, and has never been equaled.
Which takes nothing away from the life Jack Bruce has lived since 1968. He created brilliant solo projects, partnered with equally legendary musicians like Ringo Starr and Frank Zappa, and aged gracefully into the position of rock elder. Perhaps more importantly to him, he settled into life as a family man: husband, father, grandfather.
Fittingly then, he died at home. No cause of death was announced. The only detail released was the most touching, and it is perhaps all we need to know: he was surrounded by his family.
