John Symon Asher Bruce 
14 May 1943 – 25 October 2014

Jack Bruce is primarily know for his time with the band Cream. Cream consisted of three members, Eric Clapton on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. Although, they were only together for a couple years, they left a huge mark on Rock & Roll. All three musicians went on to have big music careers after Cream. Cream was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993.
Bruce was a classically trained cellist and considered himself a jazz musician, but the brunt of his work was in the rock and blues genres. He started playing jazz as a teenager and won a scholarship to study cello and musical composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama. To support himself at this time he played with Jim McHarg’s Scotsville Jazz Band.
After Cream, Jack Bruce went on to collaborate with several different musicians in multiple genre of music. His jumping around in musical genres is what some believe to be the reason he seemed to fall off the map.

• In 2011, Jack Bruce was voted the eighth greatest bass guitarist of all time by readers of Rolling Stone Magazine.
• In 2015, L.A. Weekly’s, “The 20 Best Bassists of All Time” Jack Bruce comes in at
• In 2017, Jack Bruce was voted #11 by the BP Staffers in Bass Player Magazine’s, “The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time”

Cream – “Sunshine of Your Love”

Let’s start with “Sunshine of Your Love.” Written in 1967 by Jack Bruce who based this song after he wrote the bass riff. This riff came to him after attending a Jimi Hendrix concert.
The riff is basically a walk down of the blues scale, but it’s the groove that makes it move. Jack Bruce keeps this riff pretty steady throughout every verse. The breaks in the chorus give this song much needed breath, but listen to Bruce lay it down on the lead.
In the lead, he is still laying down the main riff, but he adds variation to the riff during on almost every line. Those variations/phrasing are what I believe made Jack Bruce such a great bass player. It’s almost like he is toying with Eric Clapton’s guitar line at some points and juggling with Ginger Baker’s beats at others. Those variants are a language all in their own.
I find this particularly wonderful because in a three piece band, when that rhythm guitar cuts out to play a lead it can sound very empty. Bruce really fills it in nicely. This would be a cool song to learn and practice putting in your own variants in the lead. It would be interesting to hear what kind of language you would come up with.

Cream – ” White Room”

Here is another one written by Jack Bruce called “White Room.” The intro to this song locks you in immediately with the 5/4 time signature and Ginger Baker’s Drums. It then goes into the 4/4 time as the song starts rolling.
Bruce’s walking bass line in this song is unique to him. I am sure someone, somewhere may have written a similar walking bass line, but this one really catches your ear. Once again, listen to the variations that Jack Bruce Lays down in the lead at the end of the song.
This would be a good song for a beginner to learn if he wanted to take the time to figure out what modes or scales Jack Bruce is using while walking. Without the knowledge of modes and scales, you would just be hitting random notes and not understanding why. I personally believe that is part of learning the language of another bassist. You have to understand why they are making the choices they make.

Bach is really the ultimate in bass players you know.

Jack Bruce

Here is another one of those great bass lines from Cream. This song is simply named, Badge.” It starts right of with that sliding riff into the pulsing 8th notes. It seems simple enough at the beginning, but wait for it. Just before the last line of the verse, Jack Bruce walks it down then slams into the 16th notes to finish the run.

Still want more from this song? Here they are Live at their 2005 Reunion. Even at 62 years old, Jack Bruce could still lay those bass lines down with the best of them.

West,Bruce & Laing – “The Doctor”

What can I say. Listen to Bruce lay it down in this one called, “The Doctor.” In this group Jack Bruce plays with Leslie West on guitar and Corky Laing on drums during their brief break from the hard-rock group, Mountain.

Frank Zappa – “Apostrophe'”

Jack Bruce and Frank Zappa (1974)…. Need I say more!!! Shredding!!

Buddy Guy with Jack Bruce

I can honestly say that I didn’t understand the hype around Jack Bruce until later in life, but that was because I didn’t know how to listen. I was too worried about fancy licks and fast grooves. This performance with Buddy Guy is really what allowed me to understand more about Jack Bruce’s bass style. Listen to those bass lines. Those are not your ordinary blues riffs. That is off the charts. Just amazing!! I believe that the genius of Jack Bruce is best heard in his live performances where he can just let loose.

Jack Bruce Basses

Jack Bruce seemed to like the short-scale basses. I don’t know about you, but I have always associated Jack Bruce with the Gibson SG. To this day, that is what I call the Gibson SG, the Jack Bruce Bass. This bass sound was made famous in Cream’s live shows. However, Bruce had played many different basses in his time. I can only imagine that this was because he needed so many different sounds for the variety of music he played.
One of his first basses (another Short-Scale Bass) was a Fender Bass VI. I’m not sure if Fender named this bass “The Fool”, or if that was Bruce’s pet name for it. None-the-less, that is what it was called. It was a 6-string bass that was tuned tuned like a guitar (EADGBE ).  The Fool is what Jack Bruce recorded most of the album, Fresh Cream with.
In 1976, Bruce switched from a fretted bass to the fretless bass. This was around the same time that he joined up with Charlie Mariano, an American Jazz Saxophonist.
He played around with several different basses before he settled on his Warwick. Warwick eventually crafted Bruce his own signature model. The Warwick Jack Bruce Signature Model is a modified fretless 4-string Thumb Bass featuring MEC active pickups and LED position markers on the side of the neck.

Jack Bruce has an overwhelming catalog of music. What are some of your favorite Jack Bruce songs? What are your thoughts and opinions on his style? I would love to hear all of it in the comments below.