Things We Like
Things We Like, released ‘towards the end of 1970’ was recorded in 1968 while Jack Bruce was whipping things up with Cream. This is not Cream, though, or anything like it; it’s so much better than that.
Five of the seven tunes are credited to Jack, who claimed to have written most of them when he was twelve, a claim still up there on his website. He is also said to have written a string quartet when he was eleven. I have no idea if any of that is true, but I have no reason to doubt it either. What is true is that the musicians sound like they’re having a ball playing this, and my guess is that, even if Jack came up with the ideas in his youth, when you get musicians of this calibre playing, then the magic happens in the studio interaction and improvisation
This is our Jack with Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith and John McLaughlin playing British post-bop squeaky jazz. The squeaks are provided by Heckstall-Smith; Jack is playing string bass. The common link was Graham Bond, with whom they all played at some point. Back on 10 January I mentioned:
individuals who might be described as nodes in a network; attractors towards whom like-minded people spin. In the late nineteen-sixties London scene, two of those individuals, both born in 1947, were Julie Driscoll and Keith Tippett.
Another of those nodes was Graham Bond. Hiseman took over the drummer’s stool in the Graham Bond Organisation from Ginger Baker.
This is good stuff, full of exuberance and dynamism, not to mention virtuoso playing. By the time we get to Ballad For Arthur we are into free-jazz territory. Hiseman’s drums (which I’ll mention again tomorrow) are phenomenal throughout. McLaughlin, the only one of the musicians still alive, is a team player on this; his contributions are unmistakeable, but never dominate.
By the time the album was released, all of the musicians were involved in other things. The album is a standalone and, if not forgotten, is often given a body swerve by listeners more accustomed to Bruce’s rock work. That’s understandable, but a shame; it’s a good album.
I listened on Spotify and it is also available as a YouTube playlist :
The story goes that Karen Carpenter bumped into John Lennon in a restaurant. The Carpenters had just covered Ticket to Ride, and she must have wondered what he would say about it. In fact he liked it, and as they parted he said, ‘By the way luv, you’ve got a wonderful voice’.
I’m not completely sure why this comment appeared under this post 🙂 Good story, though