Fifty years later, Jack Bruce is the headliner, playing to a packed house at Scott’s, the last of three sell-out dates with a superb blues band called the Blues Experience. Jack looked relaxed, laughing and joking his way through a set of Cream classics and blues standards and playing like a demon.

Does this mean Jack has gone mainstream and embedded himself in the Establishment? Very far from it; over five decades as a professional musician, Jack has retained the essential iconoclasm and free spirit that saw him turn his back on the restrictions and constraints of formal music education and strike out, still in his teens, to make his way as a bass player for hire. What happened next has passed into legend; Jack Bruce became one of rock’s most accomplished composers, its most distinctive vocalist and the musician who wrote the book on electric bass guitar. Bracketed by Cream who broke up in 1968 and the Cream reunion of 2005, Jack has roamed across the landscape of popular music creating a stunning body of solo work and thrilling associations with the world’s best rock and jazz musicians. Interweaved with triumph and acclaim, Jack’s own haunting demons, personal tragedy, illness and the blood-sucking vampires of a treacherous music business have all conspired to make the pathways anything but smooth.

For two years from 2007, I was privileged to keep company with Jack as he told me his life story with candour and much self-deprecating humour. We talked in his country home, his town house, over pub lunches and walking through the streets of Glasgow on a trip down memory lane. To add perspective and context to the story, I also interviewed Jack’s immediate family, friends and many of the stellar musicians with whom he has shared studio and stage including Carla Bley, Gary Moore, Billy Cobham and Larry Coryell. Eric Clapton kindly provided a very insightful foreword situating Jack in his own early development as a musician. The end result, Jack’s authorised biography, Jack Bruce: Composing Himself, published by the Jawbone Press is now available.

But as anybody who witnessed the gigs at Scott’s will tell you, the story is far from over. There is a new project on the way. Back in October 2001, Jack’s Latin band, the Cuicoland Express recorded a live album in Holland. It has never been released, but now Jack has partnered with a new company called Pledge Music to get the album out to Jack’s many dedicated fans across the world. And believe me, it’s a beautiful album which will come as a real surprise to those rock fans who only know Jack through power trios like Cream and West, Bruce and Laing. And really that was the point of writing the book in the first place. The stories of rock ‘n roll mayhem are entertaining and sometimes jaw-dropping, but the real purpose was to encourage people to go explore for themselves the many sides of Jack Bruce – master musician and class act.

To find out more about obtaining Jack’s new album and other exclusive benefits go to: www.pledgemusic.com

The Jack Bruce biography will be officially launched on Thursday 11th March at Hornsey Public Library in Crouch End, London N8. For more information and booking:
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/whatsondisplayAtoZ.htm?whatsonid=140481 or phone 020 8489 1429

To buy the book go to www.amazon.co.uk

Well, judging by the hair-raising tales told within, Ginger Baker should be stone dead – the drugs, the booze, the fights, the car wrecks, the accidents – something should have finished him off. But no, hard as nails, uncompromising, unyielding and grumpy as ever, Ginger, now 70 years old, has bounced back from it all.

Inspired by his heroes, Baby Dodds, Max Roach and Britain’s own Phil Seaman, Ginger first came to attention in the sixties as half of rock’s greatest ever rhythm section with bassist Jack Bruce. (By the way, call Ginger a rock drummer to his face and you are likely to need two drumsticks surgically removed). Both Ginger and Jack came out of jazz and brought that improvisational freedom to Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, the Graham Bond Organisation and most famously in Cream. Of all the drummers of that era, Ginger with his red hair and skeletal features, battering out triplets and ruffs behind what was then a monster kit of two bass drums and a forest of cymbals, was the only one to play percussive melodies. He told stories on the drums in the true African tradition he so loves and admires. 

Both Ginger and Jack played with a volcanic intensity that exploded into the now legendary animosity between them, although it didn’t stop Jack bringing Ginger back into the spotlight in later years and of course in 2005, they took the stage as Cream once again. There is some fascinating unreleased footage of Ginger being interviewed for a Cream DVD in between the first and second nights of the Cream Reunion at Madison Square Gardens. Once the interview is done, Ginger declares that Jack is playing way too loud and how he isn’t going back on, until he is reminded of the huge pile of cash that awaits him. In the book, Ginger gives his side of their fiery relationship: for Jack’s you’ll have to wait for my authorised biography published in February.

Once Cream split up, Ginger stayed with Eric Clapton in Blind Faith and then formed his short-lived big band, Airforce. But I think it is fair to say that he pretty much lost interest in being a professional musician after that. The last forty years of his life from 1971, only takes up about a third of the book and most of that centres on his abiding passions, polo and Africa. Some of his later forays into the music business were frankly bizarre like Hawkwind and Public Image Ltd, nor did his own bands progress much beyond a handful of gigs. He acknowledges that the motivation for most of his post-Airforce outings was financial and only has (justifiable) enthusiasm for the three jazz albums he recorded in the 90s, ‘Going Back Home’ (1994) and ‘Falling Off The Roof’ (1996) with Bill Frisell and Charlie Haden, and ‘Coward of the Country’ (1999) which Ginger declared ‘the best record I ever did.’

If you were looking for a root cause of Ginger’s short fuse, it is probably his decades in the grip of heroin addiction. Its genesis lay in the twilight world of the modern jazz scene of early sixties London and he came off the drug many times, yet there is no real explanation of why Ginger carried on for so long given his otherwise incredible resilience. He certainly used it as an emotional crutch when times were bad, but you get a sense of somebody who doesn’t like himself that much – which would at least explain why he seemed to have a hard job liking anybody else and managed to hurt those closest to him.

But the anecdotes of mayhem and chaos, sex and drugs, come thick and fast and make for an entertaining read. Ginger can truly say he has lived life to its brim, warts and all. Oh, and the book jacket – fabulous - taken from the cover of the BBM (Bruce, Baker, Gary Moore) album ‘Around the Next Dream’ – and my favourite album sleeve ever. Ginger Baker with Matrix-style greatcoat, fag in mouth and angel’s wings leaves you treading waist high in paradox. Could he be Fallen? But where from - Heaven? I don’t think so.

Ginger Baker: Hellraiser - the autobiography of the world’s greatest drummer is published by John Blake.

Once out of hospital, he played drums in Benny Carter’s band until Max Roach arrived on the scene and young George realised he was way out of his depth. He moved to New York and found his way to the 55^th Street apartment of Gil Evans who gathered around him all the young leaders of the bebop revolution; Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Gerry Milligan and later MJQ leader John Lewis.

Back in hospital again in 1945-46, Russell worked out the skeleton of what became known as his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organisation. The idea was born of a remark from Miles Davis who said to George that he wanted to ‘learn all the changes’. As far as George knew, Miles already had the changes down pat, so he assumed Miles meant that the star trumpeter was looking for a new way to relate to chords. What came out of this was a concept of playing jazz based on scales or a series of scales rather than chords or harmonies. It was a modal structure which Miles expressed in ‘Kind of Blue’ and it became hugely influential in the history of post-war jazz.

Russell, by now playing piano and also composing and arranging, developed his ideas and led a series of small groups and bbands which included Bill Evans, Art Farmer, Paul Motian, Max Roach and John Coltrane. His 1983 Grammy nominated album ‘African Game’, a 45 minute opus for 25 musicians was described by the New York Times as ‘one of the most important new releases of the past several decades’.

Disillusioned with a lack of recognition in the States, Russell lived in Norway and Sweden for five years during the 1970s playing with stars of the future like Jan Gabarek and Terje Rypdal. Although he returned home to the States, Russell spent much of his time touring and teachng in Europe and conducting radio groups in several European countries..

Apart from ‘African Game’ (1983), other recommended albums include ‘Jazz Workshop’ (1956); ‘The Outer View (1962) and ‘Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature (1969)

Also hear George Russell line-ups on www.spotify.com

Michael Jackson had too much protection, while Jimi Hendrix never had enough. Remarkably after nearly forty years, his tragic death is back in the news. Jimi died in September 1970, apparently the victim of a pill/booze overdose. The Coroner hastily despatched the case, failed  to interview key witnesses and with no obvious signs of suicide, declared an open verdict. Among the subsequent whisperings,  blame was laid at the door of Jimi’s manager Mike Jeffery, for whom  it was alleged, Jimi was worth more dead  than alive. With his murky army past and Mob connections, Jeffery was an easy target, especially as Jimi had complained that Jeffery wouldn’t let him off the rock ‘n roll treadmill of constant touring. The wisdom of the day was ‘if you weren’t out there all the time, the fans would forget you’, and so Jimi was in a never-ending struggle  to get enough head space to develop  the new directions that  nobody, save Jimi, wanted.  In a sense, there was an unspoken conspiracy between the industry and the fans for Jimi to keep on doing what they all loved and be ‘the wild man of rock’.  Like Jacko, Jimi was the loneliest man in the world surrounded by an army of people, but was even more exposed. Fans could just wander into recording studios or up to his hotel bedroom or stop him in the street  – it was Jimi Hendrix, Access All Areas.

Then this summer came the revelation from Jeffrey’s right hand man, ‘Tappy’ Wright, that in February 1973, Mike had confessed to murdering  Jimi because he feared Jimi would not renew his contract and for Mike, the Hendrix Gravy Train would hit the buffers. Details are scant and Mike’s secret died with him when his plane crashed only a month later. So is this story credible against the stack of evidence which has emerged over the years about how Jimi died?

I became quite involved sifting the evidence while writing my biography of Jimi, ‘Electric Gypsy’ and for some years after. Check the latest issue of ‘Classic Rock’ for my interview with Tappy Wright and a review of what we know.  With so many of the main characters dead, there is no direct proof for Mike Jeffery’s confession, but there are still some time gaps in Jimi’ s last hours where this version of events could sit. The mystery remains.

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/

Tappy Wright’s autobiography ‘Rock Roadie’  is published by JR Books http://www.jrbooks.com/newtitles.html

Forty years ago as the tanks of the Soviet Union rolled into Prague, another band, the Plastic People of the Universe came to symbolise the underground resistance of youth to the Communist juggernaut desperate to squash all dissent. At one level they were just another psychedelic band and would have passed unnoticed in the West. But playing rock in the Communist bloc set the band hard against the police and they faced bans and arrest at every turn. But they never gave up and played cat and mouse with the Czech government for years. The history of the band during the seventies was every bit as entwined in the history of Czech resistance as Tinariwen is with Mali

Compared to the stories of Tinariwen and the Plastics – the political promise of western rock ‘n roll appears to have been totally compromised by its reliance on a multi-national music business for its very existence. I have just finished the authorised biography of Jack Bruce, who came to fame as the bass guitarist and vocalist with Cream. Jack’s Scottish family were staunchly working class, card-carrying members of the Communist Party – and the songs Jack wrote with Pete Brown spoke to the view that the bosses and the politicians conspired against working people every step of the way. Back in the day, Jack told a journalist that he didn’t feel the likes of the Beatles and the Stones had any real political consciousness, ‘they just got upset about things’. It seems hilarious to me looking back that the authorities in Britain and the USA could have believed John Lennon was a serious threat to the status quo. The sight of the Stones quaking as Altamont got out of hand spoke volumes. Maybe Bob Dylan most cogently expressed the hopes of a generation seeking genuine political change. But you’d be struggling after that. Although much maligned now, from the sixties evolved the notion of civil rights, tolerance towards gay people and concern for the environment But what part did musicians play in all that? Later on - was Live Aid just a very good chance to revive some flagging sixties careers? Is the thought of Sting and Bono linked to the plight of the rain forest and third world debt ridiculous? Or am I just a hopeless cynic? What do you think?