Happy Sunday POUers! Enjoy the sounds of Stanley Clarke.
Stanley Clarke (born June 30, 1951) is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass as well as for his numerous film and television scores. He is best known for his work with the fusion band Return to Forever, and his role as a bandleader in several trios and ensembles.
Clarke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was introduced to the bass as a schoolboy when he arrived late on the day instruments were distributed to students and acoustic bass was one of the few remaining selections. He is a graduate of Roxborough High School in Philadelphia. Having graduated from the Philadelphia Musical Academy, (which was absorbed into the University of the Arts in 1985), he moved to New York City in 1971 and began working with famous bandleaders and musicians including Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Gato Barbieri, Joe Henderson, Chick Corea, Pharoah Sanders, Gil Evans and Stan Getz.
School Days- Full Album
During the 1970s he joined the jazz fusion group Return to Forever led by pianist and synth player Chick Corea. The group became one of the most important fusion groups and released several albums that achieved both mainstream popularity and plaudits from critics. The big master piece by Return to forever was the Romantic Warrior with Al Di Meola on the guitar, Lenny white on drums, Chick Corea on all keyboards and Stanley Clarke on bass, released in 1976 . Clarke also started his solo career in the early 1970s and released a number of albums under his own name. His most well-known solo album is School Days (1976), which, along with Jaco Pastorius’s self-titled debut, is one of the most influential solo bass recordings in fusion history. His albums Stanley Clarke (1974) and Journey to Love (1975) are also notable.
Clarke began with TV scores for ABC’s short-lived series A Man Called Hawk and an Emmy-nominated score for Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Clarke then moved on to work as a composer, orchestrator, conductor and performer of scores for such films as: Boyz n the Hood, the biopic of Tina Turner What’s Love Got to Do with It, Passenger 57, Higher Learning, Poetic Justice, Panther, The Five Heartbeats, Book of Love, Little Big League, and Romeo Must Die. He also scored the Luc Besson- produced/co-written action film,The Transporter, starring Jason Statham and a Michael Jackson video release directed by John Singleton entitled Remember the Time. In the 2000s, he composed music for theShowtime Network program Soul Food.
Clarke formed Animal Logic with rock drummer Stewart Copeland, after the break-up of The Police, and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. Other notable (recording/touring) project involvements are: (1979) Jeff Beck, (1979) Ron Wood’s New Barbarians, (1981, 1983, 1990) Clarke/Duke Project with George Duke, (1984) with Miroslav Vitouš, (1989) Animal Logic with Stewart Copeland, (1993–94), A group withLarry Carlton, Billy Cobham, Najee buy viagra tenerife & Deron Johnson, (1995) The Rite of Strings with Jean-Luc Ponty and Al Di Meola and (1999) Vertu’ withLenny White and Richie Kotzen. In addition to touring with his own band, Clarke continues also collaborates with other artists on tour. During the summer and fall of 2007 he toured with his The Rite of Strings comrades, Al Di Meola and Jean-Luc Ponty. In addition to a date in France and dates in the Eastern U.S., the tour included shows in South America.
In 2006 Clarke joined old friend George Duke for a 40-city tour of festivals and performing arts centers. This was the first time Clarke and Duke had toured together in fifteen years. The duo first teamed to form the Clarke/Duke Project in 1981. They scored a Top 20 hit with “Sweet Baby” and recorded three albums. In 2005 Clarke toured as Trio! with banjo player Béla Fleck and Jean-Luc Ponty. The U.S. and European tour was nominated for a 2006 Jammy Award in the category of “Tour of the Year.”
Since the 1980s, Clarke has turned much of his energy to television and film scores. He is credited for the scores for the ABC Family Channel series Lincoln Heights as well as composing the theme song for the show. In October 2006, Clarke was honored with Bass Player magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Bassists Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten presented the award at a ceremony at New York City’s Millennium Broadway Hotel. Stanley who won a Grammy Award in 1975 was the first “Jazzman of the Year” for Rolling Stonemagazine, won “Best Bassist” from Playboy magazine for 10 straight years, and is a member of Guitar Player magazine’s “Gallery of Greats.” He was honored with the Key to the city of Philadelphia and put his hands in cement as a 1999 inductee into the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Sunset Boulevard. In 2004 he was featured in Los Angeles magazine as one of the 50 most influential people.
BET-J launched a series hosted by Clarke entitled On the Road with Stanley Clarke in June 2006. The series consists of seven episodes titled “Origins of Black Music,” “That Philly Sound,” “Jazz Beyond the Classroom,” “Black Music in Film, Television & Theatre,” “Jazz,” “Black Music in Film – The Next Generation:” and “Bass to Bass.” Some of his guests include Terence Blanchard, Marcus Miller,George Duke, The Tate Brothers, Gamble and Huff, and academicians Dr. Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje and Dr. Cheryl Keyes from the Department of Ethnomusicology at UCLA among many others. On the Road with Stanley Clarke episodes were re-broadcast on BET-J in 2007. In 2008, Stanley was presented with a doctorate in fine arts from his alma mater, the The University of the Arts. He has three children (Chris and two stepchildren, Natasha and Frank).