He got his influences from jazz greats like Art Blakey, Max Roach or Elvin Jones. In the sixties he became the first star drummer of rock: Ginger Baker, model of several generations of drummers, turned eighty on August 19th.
With him, the rock world has lost more than one great bass player: Jack Bruce, who died on 25 October at the age of 71, was also a brilliant composer and an outstanding singer, but above all a great person, as the many comments from colleagues already in his lifetime, but especially after his death show. It was Roger Waters who once called Jack Bruce "probably the most talented bass player of all time", for Eric Clapton, who published the two and a half minute instrumental "For Jack" on his website after the news of the death of his former Cream companion, he was "an enormous inspiration", Ginger Baker was "sad that we've lost a fine man" - the list of tributes, to which Ringo Starr and Geezer Butler also contributed, could be continued for so long. Jimi Hendrix also belonged to the legion of musicians he influenced with his virtuoso bass playing. The former BBC presenter John de Bono even called him the "Miles Davis of Rock".
