Cream

[BFrank]

I saw this in an article today. I had been wondering what brought them together, as there hasn't been any other explaination up til now. I hope it's not true, but Jack did have a liver transplant about a year and a half ago.

"Clapton, 59, is said to have agreed to the reunion because of the failing health of the other two members."

[BFrank]

Show is next week.

Anyone going?

If so........give us a review!!

[Jazz Kat]

yeah, I'm going, I just looooooooove smooth jazz. And nobody plays it like Cream! Especially rusty cream!

[BFrank]

yeah, I'm going, I just looooooooove smooth jazz. And nobody plays it like Cream! Especially rusty cream!

I think you might be a little disappointed ...

[7/4]

May 2, 2005

ROCK REVIEW

With Egos Set Aside and Blues on Its Mind, Cream Reunites

By JON PARELES, NYCTimes

LONDON, May 2 - Cream was a crisp, tautly rehearsed band on Monday night in its first full-length concert since 1968. Eric Clapton on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass and Ginger Baker on drums sounded as if they had every song mapped out from introductory riff to precise finish. Their voices were strong; their musicianship was impeccable. Their set list even had a few surprises.

Cream was back at the Royal Albert Hall, where it had played the final concert of its two-year career on Nov. 26, 1968. Between then and now, Cream's only reunion was to play three songs when it was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Monday's concert was the first of four sold-out shows being filmed for the inevitable DVD; plans beyond that have not been announced. Scalpers were getting $1,000 a ticket.

"Thanks for waiting all these years," Mr. Clapton said onstage. "We didn't go very long. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune cut us off in our prime."

Mr. Baker spoke up: "This is our prime, what do you mean?"

Yet the neatness and order of the music were precisely what made Cream's first return engagement underwhelming. It wasn't unity that made Cream one of the great 1960's rock bands. It was the same friction - of personalities, methods and ambitions - that would soon tear the band apart.

From July 1966 to November 1968, Cream came up with songs that were an unlikely blend of Anglicized blues, eccentric pop structures, psychedelic surrealism, melancholia and comic relief. Along with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream would define both power-trio rock and the potential of jam bands.

In its most incendiary 1960's shows, Cream played like three simultaneous soloists, relentlessly competitive and brilliantly volatile. Back then, Mr. Clapton didn't need Robert Johnson's hellhound on his trail; he had Mr. Baker and Mr. Bruce snapping at his heels, goading him with bass countermelodies and bursts of polyrhythm. It was the brashness of youth in sync with the experimental spirit of the era. Cream played with reckless intensity, as if sure that all the risks would pay off; most often, they did.

Since Cream broke up, Mr. Clapton has had million-selling albums, Grammy Awards and regular arena tours; his music has grown more temperate. Mr. Bruce followed his musicianly impulses, starting other rock trios (including one in 1994 with Mr. Baker) while also delving into jazz and various fusions. Mr. Baker joined Mr. Clapton's short-lived supergroup, Blind Faith, and went on to build West Africa's first modern recording studio in Nigeria, to farm olives in Tuscany and to run a club in Denver.

Mr. Clapton, at 60 the youngest member of Cream, was the most reluctant to reunite the group, and on Monday night, the reunited Cream deferred to him. Lately, his albums have circled back to the blues he has loved since the beginning of his career, and Cream's concert set leaned toward blues. There were borrowed ones, like "I'm So Glad," "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "Spoonful" and "Outside Woman Blues" along with Cream's own blues, like "Politician," and a Clapton showcase that's not part of the Cream discography, "Stormy Monday Blues." When Mr. Clapton took a guitar solo, he played the kind of long-lined, melodic leads, moving from symmetrical phrases to wailing peaks, that he unfolds with his own bands, while Mr. Bruce and Mr. Baker carefully nailed down the riff and the beat. They didn't challenge him much.

Mr. Baker had some rambunctious moments, dropping sly snare-drum rolls into "Sitting on Top of the World" and "Stormy Monday Blues." With his band mates offstage, he took a five-minute drum solo during "Toad" that was considerably shorter than the live recording from 1968. He also talk-sang the most unexpected song in the set, "Pressed Rat and Warthog," about shopkeepers with a peculiar inventory, then joked afterward about stocking Cream T-shirts and memorabilia.

There were stretches in "Sweet Wine" and "Sunshine of Your Love" where Cream started to hint at its old improvisatory free-for-all. But those passages were brief, quickly heading back to the song. "Crossroads," which Cream once turned into a psychedelic fireball, returned as straightforward blues-rock: not bad, but not revelatory.

The other side of Cream's repertory - Mr. Bruce's songs, like "White Room," "N.S.U." and "Deserted Cities of the Heart" - has aged differently. They, too, had a blues feeling, but more in their despondent lyrics then in their music, which stretched pop structures. Nearly four decades later, the songs have grown even more telling, as the mishaps of youth have given way to the irrevocable losses and regrets of maturity. Mr. Bruce sings them no less clearly now, but with far more poignancy. As Mr. Baker rolled mallets across his tom-toms, Mr. Clapton played slow swells of guitar and Mr. Bruce rose to the melody's falsetto peaks, "We're Going Wrong" - written on the way to Cream's 1968 breakup - was lambent in its sorrow.

Perhaps Cream's caution reflected first-night jitters about living up to decades of anticipation. In a set that lasted less than two hours, there was ample room for songs to expand if the chemistry was right. With any luck, Cream was just getting reignited.

[7/4]

Clapton weeps at Cream reunion concert

03/05/2005 - 08:33:55 Rock legend Eric Clapton wept last night as he thanked fans for waiting more than 36 years for his band Cream's reunion at London's Royal Albert Hall, the same venue where they played their farewell gig in 1969.

Rock legend Eric Clapton wept last night as he thanked fans for waiting more than 36 years for his band Cream's reunion at London's Royal Albert Hall, the same venue where they played their farewell gig in 1969.

Clapton and his bandmates Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were touched when the crowd gave them a standing ovation before they began the eagerly- awaited concert, causing Clapton to pay an emotional tribute to their loyal fans.

He told the audience: "Thanks for waiting all those years. We'll probably play everything we know. We'll play as long as we can."

Tickets for the first four dates in the British capital sold out within minutes, with many fans travelling from abroad to attend the historic event, which Clapton reportedly agreed to because of Bruce and Baker's failing health.

[7/4]

Enemies reunited: Cream gig ends 36 years of hostility

By Danielle Demetriou, The Independent

Published : 03 May 2005

Their ego-fuelled conflicts were as well chronicled as their style of "psychedelic blues" that cemented their position as the world's first supergroup.

Yesterday, 36 years after a bitter split, Cream, the influential but short-lived '60s band, was reunited in apparent harmony for a sell-out performance.

The guitarist Eric Clapton joined forces with the drummer Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, bass player, for the first of four performances at the Royal Albert Hall in central London.

The belated reunion was reportedly prompted by Clapton, 60, due to concerns about the failing health of band members.

Despite a hiatus of more than three decades - which easily overshadows the three years the band were together - it was clear that their pulling power remained undiminished.

Within two hours of the four performance dates being announced, all the tickets were sold out.

Its status as a must-see event was confirmed withtickets on the auction website eBay selling for more than £1,000.

It was poised to be an emotional event for band members and fans alike. The band had performed at the same venue at the height of their global fame in 1968.

The last time the trio had appeared on stage together was for a one-off union in 1993 for the group's induction into the American Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

It was in 1966 that the band Cream was formed and for three heady years they were defined as the original supergroup with a string of hits including Crossroads, Born Under a Bad Sign, Strange Brew and Tales of Brave Ulysses.

Renowned for its live shows, the trio used to heavily improvise and toured the US extensively, winning armies of fans with its distinct "psychedelic blues" style.

Despite the brevity of the existence of Cream, they churned out four successful albums which sold more than 35 million copies.

However, it was not long before cracks began to appear. It was during a 24-date US tour in 1968 that tensions came to a head and the group disbanded.

Clapton went on to enjoy a successful solo career while Bruce and Baker both went on to play with a number of other bands.

[7/4]

Supergroup Cream rises again

After four decades, the legendary trio returns to the stage

By CNN's Gordon Isfeld

LONDON, England (CNN) -- It could have gone all terribly wrong. Jack Bruce could have passed out during his bass solo. Ginger Baker could have expired amid a flurry of drumsticks. Or the two could have just beaten each other silly right there on stage. All the while guitarist Eric Clapton would be gently weeping in the wings.

None of this would have surprised Cream fans in the 1960s -- the acrimony and excesses within the supergroup being as well known as their musical riffs.

But that was then, this is now.

Thirty-seven years ago after the group performed its final concert at Royal Albert Hall, the trio returned to the same venue on Monday, much changed but still very much revered.

"Thanks for waiting all these years," Clapton admonished the crowd during the first of four sold-out concerts in London. "We're going to play every song we know."

Well, not quite. In just over two hours, Cream ripped through 18 songs -- beginning with "I'm So Glad" and then on to "Spoonful," "Badge," "Born Under a Bad Sign," Sitting On Top of the World" and "White Room."

After a tentative start and strained vocals on the first song, the group grew tighter, more assured and even energized. It was during "White Room" and the encore offering of "Sunshine of Your Love" that the audience -- and the group -- seemed to be dragged (singing and swaying) from the past into the present, without missing a beat.

Cream burst onto the scene unexpectedly in 1966 -- three musicians little known outside their individual musical spheres but very much aware of their own abilities, as was evident in the choice of group's name. And for just over two years (from 1966 to 1968), they were indeed the crème de la crème.

Clapton, now 60, was still in his teens when he showed himself to be a guitar wizard with the Yardbirds and then legendary John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. It was Baker who first approached Clapton about forming a group. It was Clapton who suggested Bruce as the third member -- an idea that didn't go down well with Baker, who had fallen out with the Scotsman when they were both members of the Graham Bond Organisation, a British rhythm and blues band. Despite the animosity between the two -- something that would take on violent overtones and self-destructive behavior in years ahead -- Baker and Bruce agreed to work together again.

Gone on Monday was the acrimony, along with the extended improvisations and half-hour solos.

Somewhere in the vacuum of career transitions and personal crisis, Clapton and company appear to have become a group, perhaps really for the first time. Mature, paced and professional, and begging the question: How good would these guy have been in the early days if not for drugs, alcohol and egos?

Still, as Baker launched into his obligatory drum solo (at just six minutes, far shorter than his trademark outings), a fan yelled out, "You go old man." He didn't need the encouragement.

Why the three agreed to a reunion at this time and place is not yet clear. They're not talking publicly.

Clapton certainly doesn't need the money. The others clearly do, but at what cost to their physical well-being? Bruce had a liver transplant in 2003, while Baker reportedly suffers from arthritis.

But Clapton hinted at a possible reunion in 1993, when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and played a brief set for the audience. "I was moved," Clapton is quoted as saying in "To The Limits," a 2003 book by Forbes magazine's Jim Clash. "I was in some other place. It's been so long since I've been around something from somebody else that's inspired me." Up until then, he added, "it's been up to me to inspire me."

For his part, Bruce, 61, has admitted that cash has also been a factor but so has Cream's place in history." Apart from the money... that band tends to get overlooked these day," he says in Clash's book. "Led Zeppelin, for instance, has gotten a lot of recognition, and quite rightly so. But, it seems to be forgotten that Cream and (Jimi) Hendrix really created that audience. A reunion would help clarify that."

Baker, 65, who struggled with a heroin addiction for many years, had been less enthusiastic about getting back together. "A lot of people think I'm dead... But that's nothing new," he tells Clash. "There was a point where I wanted to do it, when I totally went broke.... That is not a reason to do something, you know." But they did do it, and now the question is: Why did anyone care? Earlier this month, the poet Pete Brown -- who, along with Bruce, wrote many of Cream's best-known songs -- told The Telegraph newspaper the band's enduring appeal was simply a matter of quality. "There's really no substitute for great playing and writing," he said. "You can chuck things into a computer and get people off the street who look great, but in the end they aren't going to do anything that lasts."

On a Monday evening in London, four decades on, that quality came through loud (but not too loud) and clear.

And to answer the question of why and why now on Clapton's behalf ... with many of his old friends and colleagues now dead, it's perhaps comforting to be encircled by those who helped get you where you are today. The comfort of friends reconciled and wiser ... while they last.

For those who missed Monday's concert, and the others, the marketers have been busy.

"I Feel Free - Ultimate Cream," a 2 CD set billed as "the definitive collection from the original supergroup," was released on Monday. They include in studio and live performances by Cream.

There's also a "Special Edition - Limited Deluxe" 3 CD box set, which includes BBC sessions and interviews with Clapton.

[Jazz Kat]

Funny, a friend told me it wasn't that good. I knew he was wrong!

[BFrank]

Another review...WITH set list!

Rolling Stone

Cream Rise in London

Rock & Roll Hall of Famers rediscover blues ancient and modern at Royal Albert Hall

On November 26, 1968, Cream walked off the stage at London's Royal Albert Hall for what they fully expected to be the last time. Exhausted by infighting and non-stop touring, their rare instrumental telepathy creeping into formula and all but obliterated by arena-PA volume, rock's first supergroup -- guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker, already individual stars in Britain when they formed in 1966 -- held rock's first super-wake in this majestic Victorian concert hall, playing two final shows of what Clapton once described as "Blues Ancient and Modern" to audiences that literally begged them not to go, with massed cries of "God save the Cream!"

Those prayers were finally answered, thirty-seven years later. At 8:10 p.m. on May 2nd, Clapton, Bruce and Baker walked back on to that stage to a standing, delirious, disbelieving ovation, opening the first of four shows this week at the Albert Hall with the perfect, galloping sentiment: the Skip James blues "I'm So Glad," from their first album, Fresh Cream. This was, admittedly, not the breakneck, juggernaut Cream of the concert half of 1968's Wheels of Fire or the post-mortem live albums. Clapton's old wall of Marshall cabinets was gone; he played through just two small tube amps, with a Leslie for that majestic bridge lick in "Badge." And Clapton has long since exchanged the assaultive snarl of his original Cream weapons -- the Gibson SG and Les Paul -- for the cleaner ring and bite of a Stratocaster. There was less assault in the music, but more air, which allowed the original swing in Cream's power blues to come through: the conversational way Bruce improvised inside Clapton's slalom runs and grinding notes during the instrumental breaks in "Spoonful" and "N.S.U."; the taut fire of Baker's snare and tom-toms under Clapton's solo in "Sleepy Time Time."

Clapton's brief remarks to the crowd suggested lingering nerves and fears of overexpectation. "Thanks for waiting all these years," he said, after a rare live outing of "Outside Woman Blues," from Disraeli Gears. "I think we're going to do every song we know," quickly noting, "We'll play them as well as we can." But when Clapton pointed out that "the slings and arrows of misfortune cut us down in our prime," Bruce was having none of it. "What do you mean?" he interjected with needling glee. "This is our prime."

It was a bold claim for a band, which, with the exception of a brief reunion set at their 1991 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, had not played together in nearly four decades. And much that was once remarkable and unique to Cream -- the fusion and compression of jazz and blues dynamics into pop song; the instrumental democracy of the power trio; the license to jam at great length -- is now established rock & roll language and tradition. But the deliberate tautness of the performances tonight, sounding at first uncomfortably close to overrestraint, was probably closer to the way Cream first heard themselves in 1966 and early '67 -- a modern R&B trio of equal, virtuoso soloists; blues purists with futurist nerve -- before the live extremes and routines of '68 took over.

Many of the highpoints were in the details: the odd bent and time of Bruce's and Clapton's twinned riffing in "Politician" against Baker's straight, anchoring motion; the heightened tension of Bruce's high, choking bass notes and Baker's tom-tom bombs under Clapton's solo in "Sweet Wine." In a stunning exhumation of the trance-rock gem "We're Going Wrong," from Disraeli Gears, Baker's mallets rolled across his tom-toms in liquid 6/4 time as Bruce sang with operatic despair over the simple, climbing tension of Clapton's strumming. And at the end of the encore, "Sunshine of Your Love," Clapton, Bruce and Baker locked into a powerful, mounting suspense, a droning, one-chord crescendo that, frankly, climaxed too soon with a final reentry into that immortal riff.

The only venture outside Cream's recorded library was a cover of T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday," a Clapton vocal-and-guitar showcase that made clear how the balance of power and celebrity has shifted since he was the band's junior genius and the quiet mediator between Bruce's and Baker's combative tempers. "Crossroads" also bore the matured Clapton's touch, taken at the country-funk gait he has long favored in his own shows. But the surprise of the night was the focused power and undiminished strength of Baker, who sat ramrod straight as he fired off precise, provocative accents -- cymbal stings, snare gunshots and double-kick-drum eruptions -- without loosening his grip on the pulse. Even in the inevitable "Toad," he soloed with startling control, never breaking the snapping, high-hat beat as his sticks flew over the rest of his kit.

And it was Baker who left the audience with the defining image of the night: stepping out from behind his drums after "Sunshine of Your Love" with a huge smile, pumping his fists in the air like a former championship boxer who had just gone twenty rounds with history -- and won.

The set list:

I'm So Glad

Spoonful

Outside Woman Blues

Pressed Rat and Warthog

Sleepy Time Time

N.S.U.

Badge

Politician

Sweet Wine

Rolling and Tumbling'

Stormy Monday

Deserted Cities of the Heart

Born Under a Bad Sign

We're Going Wrong'

Crossroads

Sitting on Top of the World

White Room

Toad

Sunshine of Your Love

DAVID FRICKE

(Posted May 03, 2005)

[chris olivarez]

I know that these have already been released live but I hope Cream recorded these so we can all hear the difference between then and now. I would have really liked to have been in that audience.

[Hardbopjazz]

I hope these shows were recorded. I would go out and buy the CD.

[AllenLowe]

I think I came up with a new nickname for Clapton - nor Slow Hand but flatfoot -

[BFrank]

I would be shocked - SHOCKED - if there wasn't a CD, DVD, etc. released from these shows.

[1ngram]

got duff review in Guardian today from some wee kid.

[Guy Berger]

No "SWLABR" or "Tales of Brave Ulysses"???

Guy

[Spontooneous]

No "SWLABR" or "Tales of Brave Ulysses"???

The rainbow has a beard.

[BFrank]

I hope these shows were recorded. I would go out and buy the CD.

To reiterate from the NY Times article:

"Monday's concert was the first of four sold-out shows being filmed for the inevitable DVD; plans beyond that have not been announced."

No "SWLABR" or "Tales of Brave Ulysses"???

Hmmmmmm.......good point.

[mjzee]

All the posted reviews seem to be of the first of the four shows. Usually (as jazz fans know), the first set is the more laid-back and tentative; the second set is when things start to catch fire. I wonder how the other shows were; I'll bet they were a lot of fun. And I'll bet the "inevitable DVD" will draw more heavily from those shows.

[BFrank]

I was hoping to read some from the later shows, too........for the same reason.

[GregK]

I hope these shows were recorded. I would go out and buy the CD.

To reiterate from the NY Times article:

"Monday's concert was the first of four sold-out shows being filmed for the inevitable DVD; plans beyond that have not been announced."

I'd much prefer a CD to a DVD. Who needs to see them?

[7/4]

I hope these shows were recorded. I would go out and buy the CD.

To reiterate from the NY Times article:

"Monday's concert was the first of four sold-out shows being filmed for the inevitable DVD; plans beyond that have not been announced."

I'd much prefer a CD to a DVD. Who needs to see them?

Better fidelity?

I hope they do both, I don't have a DVD player in my car.

[Quincy]

Try before you buy in October. The May 5th show is on dimeadozen. As of an hour ago there were over 700 on it. Probably 1000 in another couple of hours.

[7/4]

Try before you buy in October. The May 5th show is on dimeadozen. As of an hour ago there were over 700 on it. Probably 1000 in another couple of hours.

Where? I can't find it.

[7/4]

Try before you buy in October. The May 5th show is on dimeadozen. As of an hour ago there were over 700 on it. Probably 1000 in another couple of hours.

Where? I can't find it.

Ah! I see it's already banned.