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Jack Bruce on Fretless

#42
iiipopes said:
Everyone forgets Jack Bruce was a studio call player in London in the '50's and early '60's, including playing double bass as well as electric bass, that he was for a time bassist for Blues Incorporated as the British Blues and R&B scene was developing in the UK, and that is where he met both Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton originally. So of course he has a wider range of repertoire and chops than most people realize.
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He also attended Royal Scottish Academy of Music to study cello, had a scholarship.
 
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#43
He composed a string quartet when he was 11 years old.
He also sang classical music as a child. I think I remember him mentioning a piece by Benjamin Britten, in his biography or in an interview somewhere.
This is the same guy who recorded "Apostrophe" with Frank Zappa. There aren't many like him.
 
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#44
Dr. Cheese said:
Who loves Jack Bruce’s fretless playing? I know Bruce became famous as a pioneering hard rock bassist with a distorted tone on a Gibson bass. I especially love what Jack Bruce did with Cream, but his sound left me cold. His fretless work, however, was wonderful! As legend himself, I do not think he felt pressure to sound like Jaco. If anything, he reminds me just a bit of Tony Franklin. My absolute favorite Jack Bruce album is A Question of Time (1989.) I was just listening to last Thursday.

Here he is distorted and fretless:
Click to expand...



For me Jack was up there with Jaco and Jamerson, I actually prefer his Gibson and Marshall tone although although he was a very good fretless player, he was also a very good upright player. I think a big part of the reason he is not known quite as much as a virtuoso player like the others is because he was such a great singer and composer too.

I read a story once in which Jaco was doing a gig someplace in NYC and Jack walked in and Jaco invited him up to play thinking he was going to stump him with jazz tunes not realizing Jack was a schooled musician and had played upright in a jazz band while in school with predictable results.:laugh:

This is from a documentary on YouTube, Jack was a monster bassist.



Documentary from 1969 here:



This is his Gibson/Marshall tone I really like and his playing is unbelievable in this



He also does some great stuff after the break on this tune, it's kind of muddy though, he does a lot of upright-like playing in this tune.



He has a great sound in this one:

 
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#46
Dr. Cheese said:
Who loves Jack Bruce’s fretless playing? I know Bruce became famous as a pioneering hard rock bassist with a distorted tone on a Gibson bass. I especially love what Jack Bruce did with Cream, but his sound left me cold. His fretless work, however, was wonderful! As legend himself, I do not think he felt pressure to sound like Jaco. If anything, he reminds me just a bit of Tony Franklin. My absolute favorite Jack Bruce album is A Question of Time (1989.) I was just listening to last Thursday.

Here he is distorted and fretless:
Click to expand...

He was an experienced DB player and quite a pianist before his Cream days. I was a huge fan of his Cream work, West Bruce and Lange’s first LP and his first 2nsolo albums, Songs for a Tailor and the critically acclaimed Harmoby Row.

My only thing about JB (and to a certain extent Geddy) as great as he was as a musician why did we have to be subjected to his singing?? LOL!!1
 
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#47
dbsfgyd1 said:
He was an experienced DB player and quite a pianist before his Cream days. I was a huge fan of his Cream work, West Bruce and Lange’s first LP and his first 2nsolo albums, Songs for a Tailor and the critically acclaimed Harmoby Row.

My only thing about JB (and to a certain extent Geddy) as great as he was as a musician why did we have to be subjected to his singing?? LOL!!1
Click to expand...
I say when you can play like they did and sing at the same time, go for it!
 
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#53
winston said:
This was just posted on North Sea Jazz Archive...
Spectrum Road with Jack Bruce, Cindy Blackman Santana, Vernon Reid, John Medeski!
I had no idea this group existed! Not easy listening. :bassist:
Man, Jack's bag was as deep as anyone who's ever lived.

Click to expand...

IIRC, that line-up was a tribute of sorts to the original Tony Williams Lifetime…

 
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#54
winston said:
This was just posted on North Sea Jazz Archive...
Spectrum Road with Jack Bruce, Cindy Blackman Santana, Vernon Reid, John Medeski!
I had no idea this group existed! Not easy listening. :bassist:
Man, Jack's bag was as deep as anyone who's ever lived.

Click to expand...

Those came across my feed yesterday as well, made me happy. That band also released a CD.
 
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#55
The one and only time I saw late Mr. Bruce perform live was actually on Warwick fretless, back in '88.

Two things here: apart from J.S. Bach, JB is the most inspiring musician I've ever come across so I'm biased for sure...

I always felt that the edginess that is often present in his intonation on fretless was absolutely on purpose. One doesn't study cello for years and play double bass (Things We Like) to screw up intonation on EB unless it's on purpose. Eberhard Weber does the same thing - strictly IMO.

FTR: I couldn't tune - let alone play - a bowed instrument if my life depended on it.
 
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#56
ajkula66 said:
The one and only time I saw late Mr. Bruce perform live was actually on Warwick fretless, back in '88.

Two things here: apart from J.S. Bach, JB is the most inspiring musician I've ever come across so I'm biased for sure...

I always felt that the edginess that is often present in his intonation on fretless was absolutely on purpose. One doesn't study cello for years and play double bass (Things We Like) to screw up intonation on EB unless it's on purpose. Eberhard Weber does the same thing - strictly IMO.

FTR: I couldn't tune - let alone play - a bowed instrument if my life depended on it.
Click to expand...
As I was reading your post Weber came to my mind too, he is one of my favorite players. His solo albums and his work with Jan Garbarek is sublime to me. Mick Karn is another fretless player that likes to colour outside the lines, especially when there are no lines.😊
 
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#58
ajkula66 said:
I always felt that the edginess that is often present in his intonation on fretless was absolutely on purpose. One doesn't study cello for years and play double bass (Things We Like) to screw up intonation on EB unless it's on purpose.
Click to expand...

+1. Many decades ago I worked with a reed player who turned me on to this idea that intonation can be a musically expressive device; things don't have to be perfectly [sic] in tune in order to be beautiful. [He cited a few Julius Hemphill recordings as prime examples.]
 
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