Pt. 4: How Jack met Ginger
In June 1962 Jack is back from his second trip to Italy and playing withThe Scotsville Jazzmen. One night, playing at the Cambridge May Ball, he stumbles upon another set of musicians;
Jack’s abiding memory of that night was hearing Ginger for the first time. “He looked like a demon in that cellar, sitting down there with his red hair,” he recalls. “He had this drum kit that he’d made himself. I’d never heard drums sound so good. I’d never seen a drummer like him and I knew then that I wanted to play with him.” ~ Jack Bruce - composing himself
Ginger wasn’t the only one who made an impression that night. Saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith tells the story in his autobiography (it’s long but oh so precious!):
“This little bloke came to the stage and in a powerful Scottish accent asked if he could play with us.
‘What do you play?’ I asked.
‘Ah plee be-ass’ he answered.
There are all sorts of possible responses when a total stranger asks for a sit-in […] The standard approach - unless the gig’s a jam session anyway - is to make it difficult but not impossible for the sitter-in, both logistically and musically, until you’ve got the smell of him. So I said ‘No, not now. It’s too late.’
'Are ye playin’ anither sait?’ he asked.
'Can ah plee wi’ ye thein?’
Well, he was persistent anyway. I took pity - the second set wasn’t in the marquee, and I couldn’t see the poor bugger bringing his bloody bass all the way to the wrong place. 'it’s in the cellar somewhere. I don’t know exactly where, but bring your own bass eh? Our bass player won’t want to lend you his, I don’t think.’
'O-kee’ said the little guy, nodding grimly, and off he went. He was about eighteen, if that.
And lo, he showed up in the cellar at half past one, visible at first only by the top end of a string bass moving slowly through a dense area of bobbing, shrieking hoorays.
Ginger and I exchanged a look. Tactic 17b was indicated. 'Hullo,’ I said […] ’D'you want to play then?’ Better get it over with.
[…] 'Twelve-bar in beef,’ I called, and counted in 'Blue'n'Boogie’, which is normally a fastish, vaguely boppy riff […] That night it went at an absolutely fiendish tempo. I counted it in as fast as my fingers could move. It was so goddamn fast that the choruses came and went before you could blink […] and holy shit the little guy stormed into it like there was no tomorrow, head down and no prisoners from the off. It was demonic. I remember a soul-awakening wow-here-we-go glance with the grinning Ginger a few bars in; after that it was straight through the roof and devil take the hindmost. It was glorious. It swung like the clappers.
Nobody said anything afterwards. He was much better than [our bass player]. 'OK’ I said, 'We’ll do 'Lover Man’ in F. You play the tune. Two, three, four…’ and by god he did! Beautifully. Flauntlessly. Vibrato, in tune, the lot. All the changes.
Of course he did. He was Jack Bruce, only I didn’t know that then. Neither did anyone else, anywhere, except I guess Jack.”- Dick Heckstall-Smith
Ginger, of course, also remembers that night and told the story at the 2016 memorial show 'An Evening for Jack’:
“We were playing in one of the halls there and this scruffy little bugger comes up and he’s going “Man, I wanna sit in!” And we were going “Oh, go away!” y'know. But he was persisting, he went on for about three numbers!: “Man, I wanna sit in, I wanna sit in!” So in the end we had a little discussion, we said “Ok, we’ll play a ballad with as many chord changes as possible” y'know, to suss him out! And he played all the changes you see, actually made it! After that we played a 12 bar. And from that day Dick and I adopted Jack”- Ginger Baker
And that was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful (?) friendship!
Ginger, Dick and their scruffy wee adopted kid
