And Clapton Didn't Even Know

The Ornette Coleman band reference makes sense to me when listening to the simultaneous soloing on many of the Cream live tracks. Given Baker and Bruce's jazz backgrounds I would imagine that they were familiar with Coleman's work, whereas Clapton coming from a more blues/rock roots might not have been. It's interesting how musicians influence each other.

BTW, Blindfaith came before Clapton's D&B gig.

After Cream hit big, we young musician's searched out Jack and Ginger's previous work together in the Graham Bond Organization, a British jazz group in which their playing was not much different than that in Cream. Ginger was already doing an early version of his drum solo "Toad".

With some due respect to Cream, et al, Jack Bruce's statement must be an attempt at some sort of shallow humor.

Onhwy61-

so true. Can we all agree that (The) Cream was Rock's first power trio? If not, which band was Rock's 1st power trio?

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!

I was going to say that I wouldn't argue with Cream being the first (at least with all members having equal billing), but then I remembered The Who, debuting two years before Cream. Does having a fourth non-instrument playing member disqualify them as a power trio? There are examples of the power trio sound before Cream but with the guitarist as the acts name, not a group name. American guitarist Link Wray (whose sound was that of a trio) is acknowledged by Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, and Jimmie Page (as well as other Brits) as being an inspiration to pick up a guitar. But Link was part of the "Rock 'n' Roll" generation (the 50's), not the "Rock" one (the 60's), if one wants to differentiate between the two terms and eras.

It was the power trio style of Cream that Clapton wanted to distance himself from after hearing The Band. Power trios, where all three instruments vie for equal frontline status, became known amongst certain kinds of musicians (like good ones ;-) as embarrassments, being comprised of "lead" bass players and "lead" drummers, not referred to as such as a compliment. The art of playing a supportive role (remember rhythm guitar? The power trio made it uncool to not be a "lead" guitarist. John Lennon was an excellent rhythm guitarist) was lost for a while, until The Band emerged from the basement of Big Pink to save Rock 'n' Roll.

On a separate note (no pun intended!), the internal bickering in Cream was well known, and assumed to be between Clapton and Bruce, since they were the frontmen, and had to split the lead vocal glory (though Bruce was really their lead singer, wouldn't you say?) and songwriting royalties. But it was actually between Bruce and Baker, who couldn't stand each other.