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Jack Bruce has gone nuts!

#121
KPAX said:
Ok, here's some fuel for the fire ...
Yeah, Cream were certainly free-form in their jams - so much so that JACK was sometimes downright UN-MUSICAL. But since he's Jack (and so otherwise good) he gets a pass. Listen to parts of I'm So Glad (Goodbye, live). Some might call it "outside" but it sounds like crap (he he). Jack could go from brilliant to horsepoopie in the same jam. And you want to talk about boring? Sit through Jack's extended harmonica solo on Traintime (Wheels Of Fire).
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While not necessarily agreeing with your specific assessments on 'I'm So Glad' or 'Train Time' it is (IMO) entirely probable that when a player is pushing the envelope as much as Bruce (and many, many others before and after him) did, that you will occassionally come up w/ stuff that isn't very good. But without pushing and risking the screw ups you also miss out on the truly great stuff too.

My $.02.
 
#122
KPAX said:
Ok, here's some fuel for the fire ...
Yeah, Cream were certainly free-form in their jams - so much so that JACK was sometimes downright UN-MUSICAL. But since he's Jack (and so otherwise good) he gets a pass. Listen to parts of I'm So Glad (Goodbye, live). Some might call it "outside" but it sounds like crap (he he). Jack could go from brilliant to horsepoopie in the same jam. And you want to talk about boring? Sit through Jack's extended harmonica solo on Traintime (Wheels Of Fire).
Click to expand...

I disagree here. Jack was a jazz musician, and you can hear it. Bruce recorded a free jazz album with John McLaughlin. Some people like it, some don't. He also did some great fusion stiff with Tony Williams' Lifetime.

Those live albums changed my whole view of music. Sometimes they got atonal, but that's not always a bad thing. Eric was pretty much doing the blues thing, so it was jack that was taking it to another level. Blues is cool and all, but very predictable.

But remember, things were different back then. We don't sit through 20 minute drum solos anymore either! But cream was all about the free form jams. They even said so. The songs were just something to jam too!

Also, for anyone not familiar, pick up Songs for a Tailor, Jacks first solo album from 1969. Brilliant!
 
#123
pedro said:
While not necessarily agreeing with your specific assessments on 'I'm So Glad' or 'Train Time' it is (IMO) entirely probable that when a player is pushing the envelope as much as Bruce (and many, many others before and after him) did, that you will occassionally come up w/ stuff that isn't very good. But without pushing and risking the screw ups you also miss out on the truly great stuff too.

My $.02.
Click to expand...

I'll add another $0.02 to that as well! It's all chance music. Some times it all clicks. King Crimson was like that in the 70's with Wetton and Bruford. Some nights were magic, and other nights were less not.

But if you stick to safe stuff, you wont make magic happen.

To me, Bruce was Cream!
 
#124
KPAX said:
Ok, here's some fuel for the fire ...
Yeah, Cream were certainly free-form in their jams - so much so that JACK was sometimes downright UN-MUSICAL. But since he's Jack (and so otherwise good) he gets a pass. Listen to parts of I'm So Glad (Goodbye, live). Some might call it "outside" but it sounds like crap (he he). Jack could go from brilliant to horsepoopie in the same jam. And you want to talk about boring? Sit through Jack's extended harmonica solo on Traintime (Wheels Of Fire).
Click to expand...

Well, I've never been that enthusiastic about "Traintime", but his bass playing on the live "I'm So Glad" is some of my favorite bass playing, ever. *Especially* where he takes it outside (e.g. plays in the key one half-step above Clapton for a bar, etc.).
But... there you go... :D
 
#131
as much as i like led zeppelin and cream, led zeppelin had all trhe advantages. they were a bunch of musicians who already had succsess and made albums and they obviously did good. cream worked hard playing in clubs to gain a rep and got famous together, like bands should.
 
#136
p-bass88 said:
as much as i like led zeppelin and cream, led zeppelin had all trhe advantages. they were a bunch of musicians who already had succsess and made albums and they obviously did good. cream worked hard playing in clubs to gain a rep and got famous together, like bands should.
Click to expand...

Not exactly. Page and JPJ were studio musicians, and of course Page was in the (New) Yardbirds, which also had Beck and Clapton at one time.

Clapton was also in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and was way more famous than Page. A fan wrote "Clapton is God" on the wall of an underground station, which pretty much summed it up. Bruce and Baker were part of the Graham Bond Organisation, which also had John Mclaughlin on guitar for a while.

Cream was together from 1966 to '68, and Zep didn't form until '68.

So Page followed Clapton to the Yardbirds, and I think it can be argued that Cream set the stage for loud rock bands that Zep continued.

Wikipedia sums it up thusly:

Cream, together with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, made a significant impact upon the popular music of the time, providing a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed the emergence of bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and The Jeff Beck Group in the late 1960s.
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So without Cream, there might not have been a Zeppelin as we know it. Same can be said of the band Small Faces. Steve Marriott was very much the inspiration for the sound of Zeppelin, and they even wanted him in the band. Small Faces did the Willie Dixon song "You Need Lovin'" which is where Page got "Whole Lotta Love"

When Marriott heard Zep's version he said:
"It was fantastic, I loved it, Muddy Waters recorded it but I couldn't sing like Muddy Waters so it wasn't that much of a nick. I was a high range and Muddy was a low range so I had to figure out how to sing it. So I did and that was our opening number for all the years we were together. Every time we were on stage that was our opening number, unless we had a short set. That's where Jimmy Page and Robert Plant heard it. Robert Plant used to follow us around. He was like a fan."
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So looking at it from Jack Bruce's perspective, he was there first, and set he stage, and bands like Zep were followers, as well as contemporaries. But Cream was arguably the very first "Super group".

They are both great and important. Bruce could play circles around JPJ though. ;)
 

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