{"id":679,"date":"2010-08-11T13:24:37","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T20:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=679"},"modified":"2010-08-11T13:24:37","modified_gmt":"2010-08-11T20:24:37","slug":"jack-bruce-composing-himself-by-harry-shapiro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2010\/08\/jack-bruce-composing-himself-by-harry-shapiro\/","title":{"rendered":"JACK BRUCE: COMPOSING HIMSELF By Harry Shapiro"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JACK<\/a>BOOK REVIEW<\/strong><\/p>\n

J<\/strong>ACK BRUCE: COMPOSING HIMSELF<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Harry Shapiro <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

[Jawbone Books]<\/p>\n

Jack Bruce was arguably the most influential bass player of his time. One could easily make the case that it was his unbridled improvisational explorations with Cream in the late 1960s (along with bandmates Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker) that led directly to the birth of fusion music in the early \u201970s. Before Jaco Pastorius, before Victor Wooten, there was no one flashier on the four-string than Bruce\u2014and the guy could sing up a storm, too. It\u2019s surprising, then, that nobody has written an authoritative book about this seminal talent up until now. British author Harry Shapiro provides a thorough grounding in the life and times of the mercurial bassist, singer and composer (including a complete discography and a list of live performances), and does not shy away from topics such as his little-known heroin addiction and the problematic Cream reunion of a few years ago. But this is an authorized biography, written with Bruce\u2019s cooperation and participation, and you can almost sense his hand in the abundance of peripheral facts about family and musical colleagues. The most compelling writing comes towards the end, with a vivid description of Bruce\u2019s horrifying experience receiving a liver transplant while fully conscious. (He suffered through a rare and dangerous condition known as \u201canesthesia-awareness\u201d while on the operating table.) In the months afterwards, post-surgical complications brought him to the brink of death. Composing Himself<\/em> is highly recommended for bass players everywhere, as well as anyone interested in the inner workings of a consummate musician.
\n\u2013 Howard Massey<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOK REVIEW JACK BRUCE: COMPOSING HIMSELF By Harry Shapiro [Jawbone Books] Jack Bruce was arguably the most influential bass player of his time. One could easily make the case that it was his unbridled improvisational explorations with Cream in the late 1960s (along with bandmates Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker) that led directly to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[196,227,333,332,334,271],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}