With a live version of
"Crossroads" going Top 30 for
Cream,
Songs for a Tailor was released in 1969, showing many more sides of
Jack Bruce.
George Harrison (again using his
L'Angelo Misterioso moniker) appears on the first track,
"Never Tell Your Mother She's Out of Tune," though his guitar is not as prominent as the performance on
"Badge." The song is bass heavy with
Colosseum members
Dick Heckstall-Smith and
Jon Hiseman providing a different flavor to what
Bruce fans had become accustomed to.
Hiseman drums on eight of the ten compositions, including
"Theme From an Imaginary Western," the second track, and
Jack Bruce's greatest hit that never charted. With "just"
Chris Spedding on guitar and
Jon Hiseman on drums,
Bruce paints a masterpiece performing the bass, piano, organ, and vocals. The song is so significant it was covered by
Mountain,
Colosseum, and a
Colosseum spin-off,
Greenslade. One has to keep in mind that the influential
Blind Faith album was being recorded this same year (and according to the late
Jimmy Miller, producer of that disc,
Jack Bruce filled in for
Rick Grech on some of the
Blind Faith material).
Bruce's omnipresence on the charts and in the studio gives the diversity on
Songs for a Tailor that much more intrigue.
"Tickets to Water Falls" and
"Weird of Hermiston" feature the
Hiseman/
Spedding/
Bruce trio, and though the wild abandon of
Ginger Baker is replaced by
Hiseman's
jazz undercurrents, these are still basically two- to three-and-a-half-minute songs, not as extended as the material on
Bruce's work on his
John McLaughlin/
Heckstall-Smith/
Hiseman disc
Things We Like recorded a year before this, but released two years after
Songs for a Tailor in 1971. The history is important because this album is one of the most unique fusions of
jazz with
pop and contains less emphasis on the
blues, a genre so essential to
Bruce's career. Indeed,
"Theme From an Imaginary Western" is total
pop. It is to
Jack Bruce what
"Midnight Rider" is to
Greg Allman, a real defining moment.
"Rope Ladder to the Moon" has that refreshing sparkle found on
"Tickets to Water Falls" and
"Weird of Hermiston," but
Bruce has only
John Marshall on drums and producer
Felix Pappalardi adding some vocals while he provides cellos, vocals, guitar, piano, and bass. Side two goes back to the thick progressive sound of the first track on side one, and has a lot in common with another important album from this year,
Janis Joplin's
I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Jack Bruce and
Janis Joplin were two of the most familiar superstar voices on radio performing hard
blues-pop.
Joplin added horns to augment her expression the same time
Jack Bruce was mixing saxes and trumpets to three tracks of this
jazz/
pop exploration.
"He the Richmond" deviates from that, throwing a curve with
Bruce on acoustic guitar,
Pappalardi on percussion, and
Marshall slipping in again on drums. But the short one minute and 44 second
"Boston Ball Game, 1967" proves the point about the
pop/
jazz fusion succinctly and is a nice little burst of creativity.
"To Isengard" has
Chris Spedding,
Felix Pappalardi, and
Jack Bruce on acoustic guitars, a dreamy
folk tune until
Hiseman's drums kick in on some
freeform journey,
Spedding's guitar sounding more like the group
Roxy Music, which he would eventually join as a sideman, over the total
jazz of the bass and drums.
"The Clearout" has
Spedding,
Hiseman, and
Bruce end the album with
progressive pop slightly different from the other recordings here. As with 1971's
Harmony Row,
Peter Brown composed all the lyrics on
Songs for a Tailor with
Jack Bruce writing the music. A lyric sheet is enclosed and displays the serious nature of this project. It is picture perfect in construction, performance, and presentation. ~ Joe Viglione
