Jack Bruce

I was sad to hear of Jack Bruce's passing. In Cream he was one of the creators of psychedelic and heavy rock. Every kid that picks up a bass guitar learns the riff for Sunshine of Your Love. Those sounds are all around us now, part of the everyday sonic environment.

After that he was in Tony Williams Lifetime, the band that inspired Miles Davis to explore rock music. Jazz-rock also is all around us now, even for people who don't choose to listen to it: TV show themes, film music, even in bloody elevators and when your phone enquiry gets put on hold. Lifetime was pretty much the first jazz-rock band. Full-stop. So there's Jack Bruce helping to kickstart all of that, too. His place in either of his bands would have made him one of the chief architects of the sound of the modern world. To have been in both makes him something very special indeed. We could make a really strong case that he was "Scotland's greatest musician." And that's without mentioning the very many other records and bands he contributed to, many of these really interesting, experimental (like Carla Bley; Michael Mantler; amazing gigs you can find bits of on YouTube).

Recently I'd been listening a lot to Monkjack, one of his solo records. No band, just him singing, piano, one other musician playing Hammond organ; essence of Jack Bruce. It's beautiful - deeply felt, clever, classy classy music. Here he is, not so long ago, with a lovely performance of Weird of Hermiston.

I'm sorry he's gone, a wee bit earlier than many. Our thoughts have to be with his family and close friends. But what a legacy.