Not Comfy

Today is Jack Bruce's birthday. I'm happy he's still around. Though known mostly as the bass player for the late 1960's band Cream, I like the multi-instrumentalist/vocalist/composer that he was (and is) at the very same time. With lyricist Pete Brown, Bruce wrote many classic Cream songs like Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, Swlabr, Passing the Time, As You Said, Deserted Cities of the Heart, and I Feel Free. In addition to his bass, cello, and vocal work, he was also, at least in the studio, the band's keyboard player. To a large extent, it was Bruce's compositions and keyboarding that turned balanced the band's bluesbreaking free-form improvisations with studio work that sounded more like an electric chamber orchestra, in the same vein as The Beatles and Zappa, than some guys who came up playing in pubs.
Bruce's live improvisation is some of the most lyrical I've heard. He doesn't play lines so much as he plays around, sometime all over, a line. Frank Zappa said that Bruce was busy, didn't care to play the root, had other things on his mind. All true, but all exciting. Listen to the result of their jam, Apostrophe', and you'll hear it. With Cream Jack Bruce drove Clapton to places he would never have ventured alone.
Bruce's groundbreaking solo album, Songs for a Tailor, presents some of the most interesting song forms of the period, including his subtle version of Theme from an Imaginary Western, a song covered by his producer's band, Mountain.
If you love music and/or bass playing, you gotta give ol Jack a try.
Happy Birthday, Jack Bruce!

Here's a poem from my archive. After that a picture, and so long.

A Snowy Evening

We slaughtered a cow in the barn

while still light enough to divide,
then went our ways, each with a share,
sorry to kill but thankful to eat.

The grey dusk pelted white flake

before becoming invisibly dark.
Nothing hurried headlights or the few trucks
passing deserted fields & knotty pines.

My own sense of sleep weighed the air.

Head, hoof, & shoulder rested easily
in the bed behind the cab, but inside,
words cheated me with silence.

Near home, I stopped to survey a bridge

I had to cross. Covered by wood & snow,
it waited deep as a hole in night.
I considered the other side.

The steady truck engine

forced me to make my mind.
As I drifted closer & closer to sleep,
I drifted closer & closer to sleep.