By Jim Roberts For most of us, I suspect, becoming a bass player began with inspiration—the work of one bass player who motivated us to pick up the instrument. For Jeff Berlin, that bass player was Jack Bruce, whom he cites as “the greatest bass influence I ever had.” At the age of 14, when he first encountered Bruce’s playing in Cream, Berlin had been playing the violin for a decade and displaying prodigious musical talent. He immediately switched to electric bass. After Jack Bruce died in 2014, Berlin set out to honor his spirit by creating an album called Jack Songs, which unites Bruce’s music with his own musical vision. It was released in August. Berlin’s model was the Giles Martin album Love, where Martin—the son of famed Beatles’ producer George Martin—combined music from more than 100 Beatles songs in new and innovative ways, creating music f