In 1968, Cream say goodbye... for now, anyway

I WAS THERE! A historic moment in bass world—recalled by those who were there to see it

For many years a double bass player influenced more by jazz and classical music than rock, the late Jack Bruce brought an acute melodic awareness to the bass guitar from the moment he picked one up.

Born in 1943, by the time he was 30 Bruce was a veteran of Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. the Graham Bond Organization—an incarnation of which featured the young John McLaughlin— John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, innumerable sessions and, of course, the supergroup Cream, in which he created a mesmerizing, blues- and jazz-laced rock spectacle alongside Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton.