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Stanley Clarke (born 30 June 1951) is an American musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and bass guitar as well as his numerous film and television scores.

Early life and education

Clarke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Having graduated from the Philadelphia Academy of Music, 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, Stan Getz and Al Di Meola.

Return to Forever

During this period he joined the jazz fusion group Return to Forever led by pianist Chick Corea. The group became one of the most important fusion groups and released several successful and musically highly varied albums. Clarke also started his solo career in the early 1970s and released a number of albums under his own name. His most famous album is School Days (album) (1976), which, along with Jaco Pastorius's self-titled debut, is held up as one of the greatest bass albums in the history of jazz. His albums Stanley Clarke (1974) and Journey to Love (1975) are also notable.

Film and Television

From the small screen with an Emmy nominated score for Pee Wee’s Playhouse Clarke moved onto the silver screen as composer, orchestrator, conductor and performer of scores for such films as: Boys N the Hood, What’s Love Got to Do With It (the Tina Turner Story), Passenger 57, Higher Learning, Poetic Justice, Panther, The Five Heartbeats, Little Big League, and Romeo Must Die. He also scored a Michael Jackson video release directed by Jon Singleton entitled Remember the Time. Currently his scoring may be heard on the Showtime Network program Soul Food.

Style

Clarke's electric bass style is a combination of many factors.

Equipment - Clarke has always been very strongly associated with Alembic basses and the vast majority of his recorded output has been produced with one model of Alembic or another, particularly a dark-wood-colored custom bass in the Series I body style. These basses are handmade neck-through instruments made from a mixture of exotic woods and a proprietary active pickup system that is powered from an external preamplifier. Clarke also utilizes full-range amplification for his basses, more in keeping with a keyboardist's rig than a bassist's or guitarists. As a result, Clarke's tone is full-bodied and woody-sounding, with an organic flavor.

Physical size - Clarke is a slim 6'3" and his Alembic basses tend to be short-scale (in this case, 30-3/4" versus a typical 34"), so in his hands, the Alembic seems almost like a toy. As a result, having large hands and powerful musculature in his arms and hands gives him extra command over the instrument in terms of power, range, and speed. Many of the figures that Clarke plays are very difficult for a smaller bassist to play on a larger bass.

Right-hand technique - The classic Clarke right-hand posture has his fingers approaching the strings much as they would on an upright bass, but rotated through 90 degrees. To achieve this, his forearm lies above and nearly parallel to the strings, while his wrist is hooked downward at nearly a right angle. For lead and solo purposes, his fingers partially hook underneath the strings so that when releases, the strings snap against the frets, producing a biting percussive attack. In addition to an economical variation on the Larry Graham-style pop-n'-slap technique, Clarke also uses downward thrusts of the entire right hand, striking two or more strings from above with his fingernails (examples include "School Days," "Rock and Roll Jelly," "Wild Dog," and "Danger Street").

Stanley Clarke is commonly considered among the most important bassists of the jazz-fusion era (c. 1972-1982).

Instruments

Stanley Clarke is also the first influential bassist to use piccolo bass prominently. (A piccolo bass is a bass guitar, tuned one octave higher - Clarke's are usually short scale (30.75"), four string, Carl Thompson or Alembic.) On Chick Corea's 1976 album "My Spanish Heart", Clarke can be heard on double bass, too, most notably on "Armando's Rhumba".

Animal Logic

He formed Animal Logic with rock drummer Stewart Copeland, after the break-up of The Police, and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up sold poorly, and the band did not continue.

Today

In 2005 he started the acoustic supergroup TRIO! with Bela Fleck and Jean-Luc Ponty, which toured the Eastern U.S. and played all of the major Jazz Festivals.

Discography

Partial solo discography

• Children of Forever (One Way) (1972)
• Stanley Clarke (Epic) (1974)
• Journey to Love (Epic) (1975)
• School Days (Epic) (1976)
• I Wanna Play for You (Epic) (1977)
• Live 1976-1977 (Epic) (1977)
• Modern Man (Nemperor) (1978)
• Fuse One (IMS) (1980)
• Rocks, Pebbles and Sand (Epic) (1980)
• The Clarke/Duke Project, Vol. 1 (Epic) (1981)
• Let Me Know You (Columbia) (1982)
• The Clarke/Duke Project, Vol. 2 (Columbia) (1983)
• Time Exposure (Epic) (1984)
• Find Out! (Epic) (1985)
• Hideaway (Epic) (1986)
• Project (CBS) (1988)
• If This Bass Could Only Talk (Portrait) (1988)
• 3 (Epic) (1989)
• Passenger 57 (Epic) (1992)
• East River Drive (Epic) (1993)
• Live at the Greek (Epic) (1993)
• Live in Montreaux (Jazz Door) (1994)
• Rite of Strings (Gai Saber) (1995)
• At the Movies (Epic Soundtrax) (1995)
• The Bass-ic Collection (1997)
• 1,2,To The Bass (2003)

with Return to Forever

• Return to Forever (1972, ECM)
• Light as a Feather (1972, Polydor)
• Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy (1973, Polydor)
• Where Have I Known You Before (1974, Polydor)
• No Mystery (1975, Polydor)
• Romantic Warrior (1976, Columbia)
• Musicmagic (1977, Columbia)

with Pharoah Sanders

• Black Unity (1971)

External links

• stanleyclarke.com - Stanley Clarke's official website
• innerviews.org - Stanley Clarke interview from April 26, 1998.
• mediaport.info - Stanley Clarke. Fotoreport from Jazz Koktebel 2006.

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