Been listening to a lot of Jack Bruce's work since he passed last weekend. I've always loved the whole palette and package of his talent, but what I keep coming back to is not the unparalleled virtuosity of his bass-playing whether rock, blues or jazz-inflected,, but Jack as songwriter and especially Jack as vocalist. It's the Jack Bruce-Peter Brown compositions like "As You Said" that have been blowing me away more than anything. It's the only song he ever played cello on in the whole Cream catalogue and it sounds and feels like nothing else, before or since. The melody is so haunting, the vocal filled with such passion. When he sings the last line--As you said, I'll never come again, again, again--with such unearthly emotion, it's like some shattering truth about life itself, how fleeting and beautiful it is…
RIP Jack Bruce, his like will certainly never come again...
