Bass players don’t come much bigger than the late Jack Bruce. Looking back at his early days with Cream – not to mention his stints with Alex Korner, Graham Bond and the Bluesbreakers – he was one of a short list of pioneers who were challenging the traditional concept of what a bass guitarist could play. Perhaps the best way to sum up his considerable achievements is to note that, alongside his contemporaries Paul McCartney and John Entwistle, Jack Bruce is jointly responsible for the way that the bass guitar is played in modern rock music.
Looking back in 2010, Bruce told BP “I’m strange in a way as I don’t consider myself as a bass player although that’s what I do. I sing, play piano and a bit of acoustic guitar, so I don’t usually buy records because of the bass playing. I suppose The Beatles’ Rain was an influential track, but the biggest influences on me were always the jazz players.
