While Bruce is most often remembered as the voice and brawn powering
hits like “Sunshine of Your Love” and
“White Room,” the fact is that just a
couple years after his short tenure in
Cream, he was whisked into Lifetime
when Williams dropped by the Fillmore
East to check out Bruce’s band. Jazz,
and rock, would never be the same.
Jack, how did you first connect with
Tony Williams, and what attracted you
to this genre of music that was emerging in the late ’60s?
Jack Bruce: Well, I had first heard
Tony playing on [jazz saxophonist] Eric
Dolphy’s Out to Lunch!. When I listened
to that record, I just fell in love with his
style, because he completely turned the
drums around. He wouldn’t necessarily
play the snare drum part on the snare
drum—he might play it on the bass
drum or something else altogether.
One night I was playing with my
own band at the Fillmore East. There
were a bunch of people down at the East
that night, including Hendrix, and John
McLaughlin had brought Tony along
with him. Tony said to me, “Do you
want to join my band?” I said “Sure,
okay.” And I did! [laughs].
You’ve said your experience with the
Tony Williams Lifetime was “the musi-
cal time of my life.”
Bruce: It was exactly like when Cream
was just beginning and getting really
hot—that kind of magic, with all the
aspiration and the psychedelic thing
happening in the best possible way. The
same thing applied to Lifetime, because
it seemed like that was happening all
over again for me. In fact, it was prob-
ably on another level from Cream.
What sort of influence would you say
Lifetime had on music?
Bruce: I think the band probably had
quite an influence on Miles and various
others, but I don’t think the Lifetime
had as much of an impact as it might
have had. It was more on individuals
who managed to hear the band live or
on their records. It was not long lasting
enough, but the people who were fortu-
nate enough to hear that band—or in
