Why Jazz Matters: Track 8

Tim Wenger | November 1, 2014

by Norman Provizer

If you were to draw up a very short list of the most significant bass players in the history of rock, one slot would definitely be reserved for Jack Bruce who died just a week before this past Halloween at the age of 71. Before he turned 20, this Scottish-born musician was part of Blues Incorporated – the British band that served as an incubator for an incredible number of the players who would go on to influence the music in grand fashion. From that start, Bruce went on to the Graham Bond Organization that had John McLaughlin on guitar and made a few added stops before bringing his bass and his voice, in 1966, to the super band Cream that also featured guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker.

Like a shooting star, Cream dissolved in 1968 at the less-than-ripe age of two. While Clapton and Baker went to join Blind Faith, Bruce, as his obituary in The New York Times notes, “was charting a more ambitious, if less commercial musical course.” Before the breakup of Cream, Bruce had recorded a jazz album (Things We Like) with McLaughlin on guitar; and after that breakup, Bruce toured the U.S. with jazz guitarist Larry Coryell and drummer Mitch Mitchell who had worked with Jimi Hendrix. The bassist then joined drummer Tony Williams’ Lifetime, one of the early groups to venture into what would be called jazz-rock – a fusion of sound that would, in many ways, define the 1970s era of jazz.

Tony Williams, of course, was a musical phenomenon. At the age of 16, the drummer was recruited by saxophonist Jackie McLean to come to New York from his home in Boston and work with the saxophonist’s band in the Big Apple. It didn’t take long for trumpeter Miles Davis to steal the young drummer for his quintet. In 1963, at the age of 17, Williams became part of what would emerge as one of the most important bands in the history of jazz. Then, in 1969, Williams went off to launch Lifetime; and when that band recorded its second album (Turn It Over), it was with Bruce on bass.

Around the same time, you could also find Bruce’s bass and voice on the groundbreaking “jazz-rock opera” Escalator Over the Hill with Carla Bley’s music, Paul Haines’ lyrics and Michael Mantler and the Jazz Composers Orchestra. And later, Bruce would be part of a tribute band to Lifetime, years after drummer Williams’ death in 1997.

With Lifetime, Bruce again worked with his fellow Brit John McLaughlin – and McLaughlin would also record with Miles Davis on the trumpeter’s In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew albums that are often, if not quite accurately used to mark the beginning of the jazz-rock decade. (Remember, after all, that guitarist Coryell and Free Spirits had recorded in the mid-1960s.) In the early 1970s, McLaughlin’s created the Mahavishnu Ochestra, one of the premier jazz-rock groups along with Chick Corea’s Return to Forever and the band Weather Report with saxophonist Wayne Shorter and the Austrian-born keyboardist Joe Zawinul. Together, they all created an era in jazz history.

During November, there are several other types of jazz fusion on display in town at Dazzle. On the 1^st and 2^nd of the month, saxophonist Greg Osby (associated with the M-Base movement that emerged in the 1980s) is a special guest performing with the Josh Quinlan group at the club on Lincoln. On the 6^th, it’s Jason Marsalis and his Vibes Quartet stirring some New Orleans gumbo into the music. Then, on the 8^th and 9^th, it’s Puerto Rican-born saxophonist Miguel Zenon and his quartet blending the sounds of Latin America into the jazz mix. Also, pianist Benny Green brings his trio to the club on the 29^th and 30^th. And outside of Dazzle, the area-based, groove-oriented group the Motet is at the Ogden Theater on November, while New Orleans is back with the Preservation Jazz Band that appears at Boettcher Hall at the Denver Performing Arts Complex on November 12 and Jeff Lorber Fusion does fusion at the Soiled Dove Underground on the 8^th.