“He got really upset and ran off down the street. He turned the corner, and I never saw him again”: Jack Bruce’s final encounter with Jaco Pastorius

Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker performing at the Bottom Line in New York City on December 7, 1989. Photo of Jaco Pastorius CIRCA 1970.

Whatever your preferred style of bass playing, you owe a debt to the late Jack Bruce, who is most famous for his bass explorations with Cream but whose importance in our world can’t be summed up in a single genre tag.

Few bassists have managed to successfully develop a style and then skilfully weave it through decades of radically changing music, but Bruce made it look easy, and was lauded as the 11th best bass player of all time in our rundown of the all-time greatest.