Dave Woodhall reports on a night with bass-playing legend Jack Bruce.
Jack Bruce
When you’re almost 68 and your life has included drug abuse, serious illness, a liver transplant and half a century at an end of the music business so sharp that no-one has a better claim to be the man who invented heavy metal, you can be forgiven for taking things a bit easier than you used to.
A couple of weeks ago the Robin played host to the Kast Off Kinks, another group of musicians who could claim to be the founding fathers of metal. While the K-O-K put on a tried and tested set faithfully close to their originals, Jack Bruce’s set on Tuesday night was a long way removed from his days with the original power trio Cream. So much, in fact, that one member of the audience was overheard leaving halfway through because “’E ay dun nothin’ I recognise yet.” That might have been a bit more understandable if it hadn’t come after Born Under a Bad Sign, the Albert King classic that must surely be familiar to all but the narrowest-minded of rock fans.
Admittedly there were few of the standards you might expect from a master bluesman, but this was a night full of musicianship. Bruce was backed by the Ronnie Scott Blue Experience, who had earlier warmed up a sold-out Robin audience with an efficient set prior to the arrival of the frontman. Jack’s voice may not have the raw power it possessed all those years ago, but his playing is still of the highest order and blended with the collection of seasoned performers behind him. Working particularly well with guitarist Tony Remy and a horn section led by tenor sax player Winston Rollins, Bruce was as solid as ever.
It took the Cream classic White Room to get the audience really enthused, even if the ending proved the adage that the two most intertwined phrases in the history of popular music are ‘drum solo’ and ‘go to the toilet.’ The set closer was the inevitable Sunshine of Your Love, an extended soulful, almost funky, variation on a theme performed by every guitarist who thought Clapton was God.
We had a lengthy wait before the band returned for an encore of Spoonful, the Willie Dixon song recorded by Cream amongst others. As with all the other songs that might have been recognised by the bloke who left early, it was a completely different prospect live than on record.
And that was your lot. A legend had visited town, performed to the best of his considerable ability and was now leaving. It wasn’t a night of heads down, frantic rocking but nobody should expect such a thing from a man whose rocking days are long behind him, and in any case were but a small part of his musical history. It was a night to listen and to appreciate. Truly, they don’t make ‘em like Jack Bruce any more.