JACK Bruce is probably the most musically gifted bass player there’s ever been, reckons Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, who knows his own way around the heavy-stringed instrument of course.

On Monday, Jack is in York for what the former Cream member believes may well be his first ever concert in the city. “Have I played there? I’m trying to remember that myself. I think it’s possible I may never have done a show there, but better late than never,” he says, looking forward to night number six of ten March dates for Jack Bruce and His Big Band.

At the Grand Opera House, the 68-year-old Scotsman will be playing “blues ancient and modern and sweet and sour rock’n’roll” with the cream of the young British blues scene.

“The Big Band came out of me being asked a few years ago to play Ronnie Scott’s,” he says. “They had a house band and we fell in love with each other and more or less they’re the band I play with now. Some of them still play in the house band there and it’s one of the most exciting bands in the country.”

Jack, bass player, singer, composer and world-travelling musician, describes the experience of performing with a big band as playing in a more disciplined group. “The more there are in the band, the less you can improvise,” he says. “With a big band, if everyone was improvising, it would be a mess, whereas with three musicians, like in Cream, you can.”

Playing with a big band takes Jack back to his days before he formed Cream with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. “I used to play in a jazz ensemble, The Johnny Burch Octet, which was a big band with Ginger on drums and Graham Bond on the organ,” he says.

“I remember meeting Ian Dury and he said when he was young he would go to the Plough in Ilford every Thursday to see us play.”

These are happy memories for Jack as much as they were for the late Blockheads singer. “I was doing a lot of that kind of stuff at that time, so it’s not completely new to me, and having a big band now allows me to do a lot of my early material,” he says.

“On this tour I’m doing some things that I wrote before Cream, some I wrote for Cream and some afterwards, as well as a couple of blues standards, like Spoonful – and I also do various slightly unknown blues things with modern arrangements.”

Jack hopes to make a recording with his “very dynamic” big band, but first he will soon have another record to promote. “I have another band in America, called Spectrum Road, who are a free jazz rock band, and we have an album coming out on May 8 [also called Spectrum Road],” he says.

At 68, Jack gains as much pleasure as ever from performing and recording music. “It’s different. I’m not starting out and trying to prove myself, but my voice keeps getting better,” he says. “I guess I’d put that down to good living.

“I never thought of losing my voice as I got old, but I’m definitely singing better. I’m still singing the same keys, so I’m very lucky.”

And why, all those years ago, did he decide to play bass (despite winning a scholarship to study cello at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music)? “My father took me to a couple of concerts at Glasgow St Andrew’s Hall, and there was a very famous bass player called Ray Brown – who was once married to Ella Fitzgerald – playing there and he made me want to play bass,” says Jack.

“I was sat in the back row with my father and for some reason it was the double bass that attracted me. It was a magical sound to me.”

• Jack Bruce and His Big Band play Grand Opera House, York, on Monday at 8pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atg/tickets.com/york

Did you know?

Jack Bruce was born John Symon Asher Bruce in Bishopbriggs, East Dumbartonshire, on May 14 1943 to musical parents.

In 2011, Jack became only the third recipient of the International Bassist Award, a lifetime achievement award presented previously to Weather Report’s Jaco Pastorius and Stevie Wonder’s bassist, Nathan Watts.