(((O))) Review: Jack Bruce – Smiles and Grins: Broadcast Sessions 1970-2001

It’s been ten years since Jack Bruce left this Earth at the age of 71 on October 25th. Bruce had remained a counterpoint in the world of rock, jazz, blues, Latin, and folk music. From his work with the Graham Bond Organisation, Frank Zappa, Michael Mantler, Mountain’s own Corky Laing and Leslie West, Tony Williams’ Lifetime, Procol Harum’s Robin Trower, and of course, Cream.

But it’s more than just the hit songs that Jack is known for with his collaboration with lyricist Pete Brown with songs such as ‘Sunshine of your Love’, ‘Dance the Night Away’, ‘Wrapping Paper’, ‘White Room’, ‘Politician’, and ‘Doing That Scrapyard Thing’. More than the partnership between guitarist Eric Clapton and the complicated relationship he had with drummer Ginger Baker, Bruce wanted to branch out by proving to himself that he was more than just the power trio he was known for in the mid-to-late ‘60s.

This 4-CD / 2 Blu-Ray set released on Cherry Red’s subsidiary label, Esoteric Recordings, consists the surviving BBC radio sessions and television broadcasts Bruce had done between 1970 and 2001. Going through this set is like looking at an old scrapbook through all of the accomplishments Jack had done during the 1970s. Starting with albums such as Songs for a Tailor, Things We Like, Harmony Row, Out of the Storm, and How’s Tricks.

Unfortunately, the Blu-Rays weren’t available at the time the review was in the works. But Bruce himself was very much a magnetic strength of power when it comes to his bass playing. He always had timing from the moment he hits those notes. Not just once, but twice. And that’s how he was playing those fret boards very well to go beyond from being just a regular bass player. Why do you think that Geddy Lee and Geezer Butler had admiration of Jack’s arrangements?

Onto the set. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the box set, Smiles and Grins which was the seventh track and taken from his third studio album Harmony Row which was originally released on the Polydor label in the UK, and on the ATCO label in the States in 1971, is an unbelievable result of the who’s who that are quite an introduction from the post-cream years during that time frame.

These tracks were originally released on the 2008 3-CD set, Spirit: Live at the BBC 1970-1978. But it also includes the full-length performance Jack did with saxophonist John Surman and fellow Graham Bond alumni and Colosseum mastermind Jon Hiseman on drums for the Jazz in Britain session on August 10th, 1971 which is on disc two. They did another session the same year in 1978 on September 4th also on discs three and four.

From the moment ‘You Burned The Tables On Me’ starts things off on disc one, which they played on September 10th, 1971 for BBC Radio 1’s In Concert, hosted by Alan Black, who took over John Peel who was on holiday. There’s a sense of how Bruce, organist Graham Bond, guitarist Chris Spedding (Nucleus), and drummer John Marshall (Soft Machine), are going into heavy blues rock orientation that is raw, and starting things off with a bang.

Plus, Bond and Hiseman take control during a killer take of ‘The Clearout’. Here as Bond follows Bruce’s vocal lines by floating upwards with Spedding’s heavy attack work, you feel as if you’re at those sessions, being in awe for what the quartet are about to do next. Once Jon takes centerstage throughout his drum solo, the band gives him center stage.

There’s not only the Buddy Rich approach, but going into this militant texture that he does, doing some crescendos, nods to the musical of The Music Man, and Spedding himself, gives out a helping hand to create this marching riff by asking his band mates to come home. Just as Jack gives his voice a break, Bond and saxophonist Art Themen takes the 12-bar blues into a slowed-down groove on ‘Have You Ever Loved a Woman?’ in its wildly improvisation Art demonstrates honouring his two disciples; Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins.

But it’s the lukewarm take for the ‘Theme for an Imaginary Western’ from the Sounds of the 70s session brings in that down-home country orientation by walking through the coming home routine after a long, exhausting battle at the O.K. Corall while Surman, Hiseman and Bruce laydown a brutal 27-minute improvisation of taking turns on ‘Walkabout’ from the Jazz in Britain session on August 10th the same year in 1971.

Listening to Surman’s sax improv on this piece, he lays down some incredible wailing by making his instrument cry into the night. Both Bruce’s funky-grooves and Hiseman’s thumping beats which speaks of Coltrane’s alumni Elvin Jones during the Love Supreme sessions by carrying John’s spirit throughout the instrumental work.

Not only Coltrane, Gordon, and Rollins, but also Ian McDonald’s run with King Crimson that comes to mind during the first mark of the band’s run in 1969. Surman is off the charts during his incredible hefty work as Bruce plays in some intense fingering by going completely mental throughout his bass playing. And it might had inspired Jaco Pastorius to see what Bruce was doing.

The trio channel in their own approach of a cat-and-mouse chase sequence, paying nod to the Tom & Jerry shorts with a chant-like texture that’s evidential on ‘Oom Bham She Bam Bom’. (Trying saying that three times fast!) It almost sounded very close to a score of the 1966 cult-horror flick, Manos: The Hands of Fate, channeling ‘Torgo’s Suite’ by Russ Huddleston and (not related to The Cure’s frontman) Robert Smith Jr.

But the real highlight throughout this set is the Jack Bruce band’s performance on the Old Grey Whistle Test on June 6th 1975. Here, he’s teaming up with the late Carla Bley on keyboards, Mick Taylor on guitar, Ronnie Leahy (Nazareth, Stone the Crows) on keyboards also, and The Knack’s Bruce Gary on drums. This is where he had found his niche during this performance.

You feel the chemistry between the quintet as they take both the watcher and the listener to a whole other scale. From the beautiful bossa-nova vibes of Bley’s mellotron and its MAGMA-sque arrangement on ‘Without a Word’ while Bruce channels his ascending styles of Steve Winwood’s Traffic to its funky wah-wah rocker ‘Keep It Down’ and the ‘Morning Story’ to come across the horizon.

There’s the complexity, soulful lyrics, and sailing across to another land with its challenging keyboard arrangement that’s evidential on ‘Pieces of Mind’ which Bruce visions himself singing this song to Sunday services at church by giving the attendees a run of their money by dancing off of their seats in the merry-go-round.

The next incarnation of the band which features guitarist Hughie Burns, keyboardist Tony Hymas, and drummer Simon Phillips for the April 30th 1977 recording during the time Jack was promoting the How’s Tricks album which was originally released on Robert Stigwood’s label, RSO. Going through the mental asylum with Hymas alarming keyboards setting up the temperature levels going up in the sinister overtones inside the ‘Madhouse’, Bruce transforms himself into a mental patient ready to reign hell like no other.

Phillips going completely off the charts on his drum kit sets up the loonies taking over the place and running it with an iron fist and Bruce visioning his Roger Chapman approach, makes it all worth the wait. Then, it’s a bit of a rock-and-roll sing-along song with its clavinet-pop style of the Rolling Stones and pre-Iron Maiden vibes as Burns sings about ‘Baby Jane’ with some blistering riffs between him and Bruce.

Then, it’s a slithering take of Albert King’s ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ which Cream covered for their third album Wheels of Fire in 1968. For Jack, he hadn’t forgotten his roots. Adding in that jazzier approach to the song, Burns and Hymas take listeners to the darker corridors with its sinister midsection before closing the doors down to open up 1978.

The Jazz in Britain sessions on September 4th that year, sees Bruce coming back once more with Hiseman and Surman by returning to another jam on ‘Fifteen Minutes Past Three’, the fast-paced nod to Mahavishnu’s first album throughout ‘Ten to Four’, and the free-jazz take on ‘Twenty Past Four’ where Surman’s sax continues to fly off into the night with Bruce’s wildly bass exercise and Hiseman’s pounding hefty work.

The 64-page booklet contains images of Jack’s Warwick Pro Series (back) and his Fender VI string instrument (front), followed by Sid Smith’s incredible chronological liner notes, detailing Bruce’s history after the break-up of Cream as he started to embark on a solo career during the beginning of the 1970s. There are pictures of him, magazine covers of BEAT instrumental, solo album covers, and promo photos of The Jack Bruce Band.

This set is an incredible document on how much Jack was so far ahead of his time. Yes, Eric Clapton embarked on a successful solo career after Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney & Bonnie, and Derek & The Dominoes, but Jack’s legacy deserves a huge amount of recognition when you delve into this amazing box set Esoteric had put out. And, if you’re both a Cream fan or starting out where to begin with Jack’s solo career, this set here is worth checking out.