As y'all have prolly heard, this past Saturday, bassist multi-instrumetalist Jack Bruce passed away; he was 71. Without question, Mr. Bruce will forever be best remembered as the bassist and songwriter for English '60s psychedelic heavies Cream. However, looking back at the man's life, it's hard to conceive his reach, as he wasn't just "the bass player for Cream"; his was a thread not just woven into rock history, but music history.

Bruce's teenaged musical talent earned him a scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama—as a cellist. However, the school didn't like him playing jazz, so he left to play music in Italy. After some time playing there, he landed in London and joined Blues Incorporated. Blues Incorporated was a band of rotating R&B/jazz players led by Alexis Korner, and it was THE proving ground for many of the '60s English R&B players. It was in BI that Bruce met drummer Ginger Baker. In 1963, after BI had split, Bruce teamed with Baker, guitarist John McLaughlin, and organist Graham Bond to form jazz/blues/R&B group the Graham Bond Organization. After the GBO imploded, Bruce stayed busy playing with John Mayall's Bluebreakers and Manfred Mann (long enough for them to hit with "Pretty Flamingo"), and even attempted, with Clapton and Steve Winwood, to form a now forgotten super group called Powerhouse. Then, in July of 1966, Bruce, Baker, and Clapton formed Cream. Cream has always been DEEPLY important to any head who has ever heard the band. They were, as legend has it, the first rock supergroup! Tho' they kinda lost their drive in the end, the band did change the game as they re-envisioned the blues in a then contemporary context; they expanded the 12-bar blues form till it radiated DayGlo. And it was Bruce, along with poet Pete Brown, who wrote most of the songs.

During the summer of 1968, before Cream split, Bruce recorded his first solo album. It was an acoustic jazz album with John McLaughlin, Dick Heckstall-Smith, and Jon Hiseman titled Things We Like. The album was eventually issued in 1970, and I think for all the ROCK which Bruce begat, this album was his soul, a culmination, an arrival of where he'd hoped to land.

After Cream split he released his first solo LP, Songs for a Tailor, toured to support the LP, and then joined drummer Tony Williams's short-lived fusion group, Lifetime. After Lifetime split, Bruce recorded another solo LP, Harmony Row, and then formed the very Cream-like and VERY sweaty, West, Bruce and Laing; "West," of course, was Vagrants/Mountain guitarist Leslie West. Also during the early '70s, Bruce played on Lou Reed's Berlin and Frank Zappa's Apostrophe! He rounded out the '70s with a few more solo ventures. Throughout the '80s, '90s, and '00s he soldiered on with a solo career and also teamed up with guitarist Robin Trower for a couple albums, BLT and Truce, producing/arranging movie scores, recording some piano works, and touring with Ringo Starr's All Star Band.

Bruce's solo output was fucking massive; in all he had 14 solo albums, and only God KNOWS how many other projects he played on. His final album, Silver Rails, was just issued this past March. I think the only time he slowed down was in 2003 after his first liver gave out, but he was back in 2005 playing with the reformed Cream. He was back up to full speed by '08 till the run up to his death Saturday.