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Product Description
Review
Things We Like was recorded a few months ahead of Cream's demise in August 1968, though not released till 1970, when Jack Bruce's solo career was well underway. Since then it's become rare as hen's teeth, yet hasn't been accorded the kind of mythic status that other Britjazz albums of the era seemed to have had bestowed on them. It would be trite to suggest that jazz snobbery might be in effect here...or would it? Maybe the fact that Jack wasn't tempted to enjoy the poverty and critical hostility that was the lot of the British jazzer on a permanent basis caught the attention of the Jazz Police. Who knows..?
Bruce wrote these tunes when he was 12; he must have spent a huge amount of his childhood devouring industrial sized quantities of post bop jazz. These are vivacious, maybe even brash compositions, but they don't sound like the work of a 12 year old (particularly the stalking, episodic "HCKHH Blues" or the hectic, tumbling "Over the Cliff"). To play them, Bruce returned to the double bass and enlisted former Graham Bond colleagues Dick Heckstall-Smith and John McLaughlin, plus drummer Jon Hiseman of Colosseum. Like Bruce, all these musicians had grown up on a diet of R'n'B and rock as well as jazz, and were casually breaking down the doors between them.
Heckstall-Smith's raspy tenor (and occasional soprano)is the dominant voice, stuffed with equal amounts of blues honk and post bop technique. Occasional Roland Kirk inspired dual saxophone action livens things up too. Mclaughlin is on fiery form, with his scrabbly, distorted Hendrix-plays-bebop runs at an early but satisfying stage.
Meanwhile Bruce and Hiseman power things along at a fair old lick. What they sometimes lack in sophistication they make up for in drive and splashy energy. Bruce's love of Mingus makes itself felt in his solo spots, while his tangy melodies recall the warped Texas blues of Ornette Coleman. A year or so later Mclaughlin had honed the first stirrings of electric jazz heard here into the sweet blast of Extrapolation, rightly regarded as a classic. While Things We Like isn't maybe on that level, it's definitely a forgotten gem, and full marks to Universal for digging it out of the vaults. --Peter Marsh
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The cd was not available for a long time. Now all of us are rewarded with bonus addition and perfect booklet. The added song Aging is worthwile. It is a band that combines 1968 skills of John McLaughlin (Tony Williams, Miles Davis super star) and Dick and Jon from Colosseum (at that time just after Graham Bond sessions and ahead of John Mayall Bare wires. The cd is some kind of freakout compared with "nice songs" of Jack or Cream, however it is a British jazz masterpiece of that time. It is a great musical feast.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The first thing Jack Bruce recorded in 1968 after Cream disbanded, although it was released after Songs For A Tailor.
Its purely an instrumental jazz album with Jack on upright acoustic bass. He is joined by Dick Heckstall Smith on saxes and Jon Hiseman on drums on all tracks and John McLaughlin on guitar on half. (Compare McLaughlins work here with that on his own superb album Extrapolation from 1969. It sounds like a completely different guitarist. Amazing!)
The music, apart from one track, is all based on tunes Jack penned when he was 12.
The blistering Over The Cliff gets things going followed by the awesome Statues, a ballad with a fast middle section. Hiseman's playing is so loose compared to his Colloseum work of that time. Fine arco from Jack too. It is all sensational playing. this is not Jack Bruce playing at playing jazz, its the real thing. This album can hold its own in most company.
Sam Enchanted Dick combines two tunes and introduces McLaughlins very pithy guitar and more swing than you can shake a stick at
Born To Be Blue is a Mel Torme/Robert Wells ballad. Big Dick gets centre stage and loads of feeling into this wafter with totally sympathetic work from his colleagues. HoHo Country Kicking Blues is a fine tune first coming to light when Jack was part of The Graham Bond Organisation. After the hugely enjoyable main theme it really crackles along, with fine solos from McLaughlin, Jack then Heckstall-Smith who goes for broke.
Ballad For Arthur is a so subtle masterpiece. The emotional interplay is at its height. Keening tenor, shimmering cymbals and plangent bass. It does not get a lot better than this. McLaughlin creeps in with some beautifully chosen phrases. This track is my highspot amongst many.
Things We Like is another great track featuring more typically raunchy tenor, dirty guitar, grubby bass and smutty drums.
Cant tell you what the bonus track sounds like as I am reviewing this by listening to my orginal record.
Its great that this music is available again. I guess it only slipped through the "Powers That Be" at the time as it was so soon after Cream and Jack still had a high profile. If recorded only a few years later it would never have been released.
A forgotten gold seam, go on buy it, its outstanding.
Its purely an instrumental jazz album with Jack on upright acoustic bass. He is joined by Dick Heckstall Smith on saxes and Jon Hiseman on drums on all tracks and John McLaughlin on guitar on half. (Compare McLaughlins work here with that on his own superb album Extrapolation from 1969. It sounds like a completely different guitarist. Amazing!)
The music, apart from one track, is all based on tunes Jack penned when he was 12.
The blistering Over The Cliff gets things going followed by the awesome Statues, a ballad with a fast middle section. Hiseman's playing is so loose compared to his Colloseum work of that time. Fine arco from Jack too. It is all sensational playing. this is not Jack Bruce playing at playing jazz, its the real thing. This album can hold its own in most company.
Sam Enchanted Dick combines two tunes and introduces McLaughlins very pithy guitar and more swing than you can shake a stick at
Born To Be Blue is a Mel Torme/Robert Wells ballad. Big Dick gets centre stage and loads of feeling into this wafter with totally sympathetic work from his colleagues. HoHo Country Kicking Blues is a fine tune first coming to light when Jack was part of The Graham Bond Organisation. After the hugely enjoyable main theme it really crackles along, with fine solos from McLaughlin, Jack then Heckstall-Smith who goes for broke.
Ballad For Arthur is a so subtle masterpiece. The emotional interplay is at its height. Keening tenor, shimmering cymbals and plangent bass. It does not get a lot better than this. McLaughlin creeps in with some beautifully chosen phrases. This track is my highspot amongst many.
Things We Like is another great track featuring more typically raunchy tenor, dirty guitar, grubby bass and smutty drums.
Cant tell you what the bonus track sounds like as I am reviewing this by listening to my orginal record.
Its great that this music is available again. I guess it only slipped through the "Powers That Be" at the time as it was so soon after Cream and Jack still had a high profile. If recorded only a few years later it would never have been released.
A forgotten gold seam, go on buy it, its outstanding.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I loved Cream and knew that the magic ingredient was Jack Bruce. I remember getting the double LP Jack Bruce at His Best, which was part of a series with albums dedicated to Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and a Cream best of all in white sleeves with psychedelic cartoon pictures of each of them on the cover. I remember that the sleeves opened at the top and had a flap over the opening. One song that jumped out at me was Hkhh Blues. I wondered where it came from and it was only later that I found this album.
This was Jack getting his bearings post Cream, recording tunes that he wrote as a schoolboy. Dick Heckstall Smith gets to stretch out on sax and Jon Hiseman plays mean drums in, what was not too far in conception from what Cream was doing but which stripped away the rock camouflage to reveal the free jazz that was there all the time.
The story of John McLaughlin's involvement is interesting. Jack was driving home one day when he saw John looking rather dispondent, he stopped and asked how things were. John had been asked to go over the America to join Tony Williams Lifetime but could not afford the ticket to get there, so Jack asked him to join his sessions to help him get there. McLaughlin went on to play a vital role in the sound of Miles Davis' In a Silent Way via Tony Williams which in turn lead to Mahavishnu Orchestra. This album and the meeting that lead to McLaughlin being invited to play on this album surely ranks as one of those pivotal moments. Whatever you call that blend of jazz and rock that arose out of the Miles Davis group.
This was Jack getting his bearings post Cream, recording tunes that he wrote as a schoolboy. Dick Heckstall Smith gets to stretch out on sax and Jon Hiseman plays mean drums in, what was not too far in conception from what Cream was doing but which stripped away the rock camouflage to reveal the free jazz that was there all the time.
The story of John McLaughlin's involvement is interesting. Jack was driving home one day when he saw John looking rather dispondent, he stopped and asked how things were. John had been asked to go over the America to join Tony Williams Lifetime but could not afford the ticket to get there, so Jack asked him to join his sessions to help him get there. McLaughlin went on to play a vital role in the sound of Miles Davis' In a Silent Way via Tony Williams which in turn lead to Mahavishnu Orchestra. This album and the meeting that lead to McLaughlin being invited to play on this album surely ranks as one of those pivotal moments. Whatever you call that blend of jazz and rock that arose out of the Miles Davis group.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Jack the jazzer
I'm a huge fan of Jack Bruce but Things We Like is very personal to Bruce and Heckstall-Smith. Alot of what sounds like to the untrained ear of improvised jazz. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Karlos B
The Heavy Hitter
I tried this one as my first JB purchase as he doesnt sing on this one and it is his true "Jazz" solo CD. Read more
Published on 16 May 2003 by Mr. G. D. Simmons
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