Is Bruce The “Musician’s Musician”?

Your close… actually, Bruce is the magicians musician. This is due mainly because of the magical moments Bruce creates on stage. Word on the street is that Bruce will be working with David Copperfield for a summer tour… stay tuned… details are slowly coming in… 😉

Musician’s Musicians

The majority of albums I buy are live concerts, largely because I know from experience that you can manufacture virtually anything in the studio these days (Of course if that’s true, then why does the industry continue to insult our intelligence with such incredible crab). Live work is the only way of evaluating a player’s performance.

Bruce is a superb technical player, brilliant improviser and fantastic composer. The live work showcases his innovative flair – every performance is different (why else would we all have 26 different versions of the same song, love them all for their differences, and talk about them in terms of concert dates?). Most other musicians have maybe one or two published live performances.

For me, a musician’s musician is someone that you respect for their ability and talent, but just as importantly for their integrity and humanity – that’s why so many other superb musicians like Clapton, Elton John, Bonnie, Chaka Khan, Ricky, Ornette Coleman, Bela, (fill in the rest of the list yourself, you know the names as well as I do) are so keen to play with him, or have him play with them.

“Bruce?, yeah he’s this cool guy who play great keyboards – I’ll introduce you, I’m sure you’d get along…”

My answer is, “All of the above.” Bruce constantly amazes me with the things he does musically.

Another reason I like Bruce’s music is harder to define. Maybe it has to do with the way he voices chords or his singing style. I only know when I unexpectedly hear one of Bruce’s songs, my spirit gets lighter and the day instantly gets better. Not a very technical answer, I know, but that is as specific as I can get.

Jackie

Garcia, metheny, fleck…all masters of their instruments…just like Bruce. These cats wouldn’t ask Bruce to play with them or agree to play with him if he wasn’t a musicians musician

other musician musicians
Steve Howe, Joe Jackson,Derek Trucks

Got to throw in Richard Thompson, very much like Bruce except for the playing guitar British and Muslim.

Also Jaco Pastorius except for the bass , nuts and dead.

I think what turns me on about his music mostly is that he transcends the “performing a song” thing and moves on to that level where he “saying something” with his music. There are some public speakers who you can hear and whatever it is that they’re saying doesn’t really sink in…. and there are some who can stir your mind and soul. It’s hard to quantify it, but I fell like Mr. Hornsby just has that “it” with his expression of his musical ideas and dreams. How many performers can you see in a live performance where they are doing an improv section and people are sitting there kinda saying to themselves, “go, man, go!”? I find myself doing that at Bruce shows, and after he’s done and goes back into the “song proper”, I feel an exhilirating rush that can only be summed with with the word, “yeah!” How’s that for articulating that which can’t really be articulated with words?

Rich

I’ve sometimes wondered what kind of influence Yes has had on Bruce’s music. I imagine that Rick Wakeman must have some kind of an influence. Steve has been one of my favorite players for a long time.

Another combo I’d love to see is Bruce and Donald Fagan (or Becker/Fagan/Steely Dan/Bruce) together.

There’s another, very important, reason why musicians like Bruce’s music. He has made it cool to engage in what many music critics have derisively called “pointless noodling.” We all like to do it, and he does it better than the rest of us.

Rich

I’ve read that Pat Metheny would not Join the Dan for a whole tour because the were not very impovisational, I would suspect that Bruce may feel the same way.