I first met Jack Bruce in Stuttgart, Germany in 1995. It was a televised festival of the music of Jimi Hendrix and I was there as Vernon Reid’s tour manager. It was a spectacular festival with a brilliant assemblage of bright, creative lights: Pharoah Sanders, Cassandra Wilson, Trilok Gurtu to name just a few.
In case you don’t know, Jimi Hendrix, for just about anyone of my generation who is serious about music, is an object of the greatest veneration. He changed all the rules about what music could do and then bowed out at age 27. Kids get lost in the psychedelic haze and guitar fuzz of the era but close examination reveals a magnificent, innovative mind and a wealth of wise, revealing songs. Now, I have seen musical idolatry bring out the very best in performers as well as the absolute worst; thankfully this event was one of the good ones. It was immediately apparent that everyone was there in a spirit of sharing and celebration.
Despite this open, democratic environment, Jack Bruce had a place of primacy. Not only had he been one of the biggest music stars in the world as Jimi was coming up, not only had he known and worked with Jimi, but Jimi had covered songs Jack had written for his band, Cream. Clearly Jack had engaged with Jimi’s music and his spirit in a way that no one else had. Some of us may have even been a bit intimidated. This might not seem surprising but, when it comes down to playing music, the playing field is generally pretty level. You bring what you’ve got; if you’re playing in a basement it doesn’t matter if you’ve done it in arenas and stadiums in the past. Despite that, Jack had an aura of legitimacy that no one could match.
The other thing we discovered when we arrived was that this “festival” was a complete mess! Not to generalize or anything (ahem) but anyone who has lived on the road can tell you that Germans are widely regarded as having the most buttoned-down and organized culture in the world. There might be other issues touring Germany (you better like pork!) but if you asked for a Trace Elliot bass amp you could count on getting a Trace Elliot. Well, not this time. The people running things were absolutely lovely but they didn’t know the first thing about staging a production such as this. There was a load of work to be done and no one to do it. So Jack’s tour manager (a great guy named Beat) and one other TM from the states and I put our heads together and realized that either we were going to do a ton of extra work that we were not hired to do and build this thing or it was simply not going to happen.
Despite the fact that it might still blow up in our faces and we would get the blame (as well as the fact that there were only 3 of us and we had just met), we decided that this show had the potential of being too great to just let it go; we would pull together and make it happen. Telling the promoters that they would have to cancel the show in Cologne because there wasn’t enough stage space wasn’t much fun but in the end they were relieved to have us on board. Rehearsals began and the show started to take shape. As de facto stage manager, I worked closely with all of the musicians, not just the ones from Vernon’s band whom I was hired to help.
So what about Jack Bruce? It was only on the last day that the ex-rock star let his guard down with me. I never could have anticipated the man who emerged from out of the ashes of the superstardom, the substance abuse, the internal politics and all the rest of it. Maybe it was seeing that he was respected in this crowd– that his fragile creative soul would be safe– that allowed him to spill it. Underneath the strutting peacock of Cream was a wounded child who had never known love or acceptance or support as an aspiring artist from working-class Scotland. He always knew that there was something else out there for him beyond the manual labors that awaited his classmates but there was no model for what he wanted to do. Any effort he made to pursue it only brought him scorn and derision; he never knew anything else growing up. And the stakes were high—life and death.
Not even among his fellow band mates in Cream did he feel he was treated as an equal. Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker were from cosmopolitan, sophisticated London. Londoners tend to show little respect for anyone from “the provinces” and high-handed Eric and savage Ginger were no exception.
Jack’s story was one of yearning for this other nameless thing and his struggles to find it and to fight desperately to hang onto it. There was a brutal, blood-soaked nature about it but it hadn’t left him hardened. It had left him open like a still-bleeding wound. If pretending to be a rock star now shielded him from some of the continuing insults and assaults, so be it. He had a mission.
Jimi’s songs were divided up among the gathered musicians. Side men from one band might join with another band on a particular song and they would re-combine on the next one. That open nature prevailed right through the entire gathering. Jack played at least two songs with Vernon, as I recall. There was an explosive power-trio take on Manic Depression with Terry Bozzio on drums (seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi2znMvOPqU) but the one that really struck me was left out of the final cut of the TV show for some reason. We had rehearsed The Wind Cries Mary a number of times and Jack’s read as vocalist was faithful and rich; it was ready to go. But when he went out on stage to play it for the cameras and the audience, an entire other character emerged. Although none of it had been there in rehearsal, all that personal urgency emerged in that song. I realized that Jack Bruce’s story and Jimi Hendrix’s story were more alike than I had ever considered. Maybe we all had a bit of it– one aspect or another—and that was why we loved Jimi’s music but Jack had been living in it for far longer than any of us had been conscious and his experience of it was way, way deeper than I could have ever understood. It was truly a revelation.
A few years later, Kip Hanrahan asked me to recommend a guitarist to work with Jack on an upcoming album. I immediately recommended Vernon, not because they shared musical goals (they did) or because I knew Vernon had the musical language to enhance what Jack was doing (he does) but because I knew that Vernon had grokked Jack in Stuttgart just as I had. Kip was concerned that Vernon was too busy or that the money wouldn’t be right but I said, “Just call him.” The rest, as they say…
I will leave it to Vernon to elucidate what became a tremendously important musical and personal association for him. Now that I know, with Jack’s passing, that there will be no more performances by them together in their band Spectrum Road, I will simply treasure the memories of Jack, both on stage and off. Updated Oct 26, 2014, 1:35 PM