For Philly born and bred music prodigy Stanley Clarke, a flourishing career as one of modern music’s premier bassists was imminent.
Showing great promise by the tender age of 20, Clarke embarked on a musical journey that has ultimately lead to nearly five decades as a one of the jazz community’s most coveted recording artists, performers, composers, producers and conductors. To say that he has raised the bar for every aspiring bass player that has followed would be an understatement. Clarke is currently working on what he considers to be one of his most interesting projects.
“I have a new record coming out,” says Clarke, from his home in Topanga Canyon, Calif. “It’s a bunch of young guys I’ve been touring with for about five years. All these guys have kind of emerged as a new young jazz force out of Los Angeles. I’ve been one of their biggest advocates and I’m so happy that they’re finally getting recognized. They came up with some music and I have to honestly say, some of it I would have never, ever in a billion years come up with some of this stuff. I was sold. Some of these guys were better composers and others producers, so I just kind of had to flush it out and put the arrangements in. It’s really something.”
“This record is probably the most controversial record that I’ve ever made,” adds Clarke. “I’ve never really heard a record quite like this. It’s very compositional and very young sounding. It is a shorter album, right around 50 minutes so it’s very comfortable timing wise, you can get in it and get out of it. The record is very honest and is exactly what these guys sound like. Each one of them has virtuosity, but because they’re young there’s a certain amount of aggression in it. Because I’m still a young 66-year-old (laughs) I still have that myself. I don’t think I’ll ever lose my technique on the bass. I’ve spent too much time with that, so I’m right there with them. The album has a really unusual sense that has a really high technical degree, but it’s a very emotional record as well.”
Featured on the album are current band members Michael Mitchell (drums), Beka Gochiashvili (piano and keyboards), and Cameron Graves (keyboards) along with special guest artists that includes rapper Doug E. Fresh.
A graduate of the Philadelphia Academy of music, Clarke emerged from the rich jazz community of his hometown in the early ’70s determined to make a name for himself. Relocating to New York City, where he immediately left an indelible musical footprint, Clarke soon found himself working alongside jazz icons Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Pharaoh Saunders, Gil Evans and Stan Getz among others. Coveting the works of his greatest influences, Charles Mingus, Scott LaFaro and John Coltrane, Clarke ultimately found himself teaming up with Chick Corea to form the legendary jazz-fusion group “Return to Forever.”
“I’ve learned a lot from my forefathers, musicians,” reflects Clarke. “I’ve found that musicians that have spent a long time developing their art tend to have a certain type of humility. Even Miles Davis, there was a certain amount of humbleness in him.”
“The older I get the more I tend to feel more humble,” adds Clarke. “When you’re a bandleader, you’re not going to have a great band if you’re mean. You see Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, they couldn’t be any nicer, all these guys are great. The guys that come off badly are usually afraid of something. When I see guys like that I usually go and talk to them, it’s unnatural.”
Not surprisingly, numerous honors and awards have been bestowed on Clarke including Gold and Platinum records, 4 Grammy Awards (13 nominations), readers and critics polls, Rolling Stone Magazine’s first Jazzman of the Year, Lifetime achievement Awards, the key to the City of Philadelphia and Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, and the list goes on.
With dozens of unforgettable albums to his credit, it was the release of his now classic “School Days” album in 1976 and the album’s title track that has become a standard that countless bassists strive to include in the repertoire to this day.
Responsible for taking the bass from the ranks of being a background instrument into the spotlight, Clarke, a master of both the acoustic and electric bass, has been pushing the bass to its limits for decades.
“I’ve done this long enough to be able to feel comfortable about what I do,” says Clarke. “I come from a family that is steeped in, you work for whatever you want and you go out and get it.”
“The job of the artist is to set trends,” adds Clarke. “When Charlie Parker came up he created something saxophone players never did, same with Coltrane and many others. That comes from having your thing together and pushing on and working for it. And that’s kind of like what I do. I work very hard. I have this affinity to take the bass to interesting places.”
Beyond the concert stage, Clarke is a highly-respected presence in the film world scoring music for the movies “Boyz ‘N the Hood,” “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” “The Transporter,” “Romeo Must Die,” “Passenger 57,” “Poetic Justice,” “Best Man Holiday” and “The Five Heartbeats,” among others.
“Film has given me the opportunity to write large orchestral scores and to compose music not normally associated with myself,” says Clarke. “It’s given me the chance to conduct orchestras and arrange music for various types of ensembles. It’s been a diverse experience for me musically, made me a more complete musician, and focused my skills completely.”
A talent that is always in demand, Clarke has gone on to work with the late George Duke, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, Stewart Copeland, Billy Cobham, Al Di Meola, Bela Fleck and Jack DeJohnette.
“Jazz is a funny thing, it actually never really dies,” says Clarke. “Nowadays the jazz programs at schools is probably stronger than it’s ever been. The reason is because it’s really the only music, other than classical music that kids actually have fun playing. Like horn players, there are only so many you can have in a classical orchestra. In a jazz band, it’s much easier. Like a classroom process, you have a bunch of horn players pull out a Herbie Hancock chart that’s written for a band and the horns will play it and it’s great.”
“The problem with getting jazz out to the masses has to do with record companies and radio,” says Clarke. “When it turned into smooth jazz radio, it’s not that it wasn’t good, but it just sort of went away from traditional jazz people that played individual instruments, not totally though. You hear a lot of saxophone players but they all play a certain way. Kenny G, Dave Koz and Grover Washington, Jr. and it was a certain format. Whenever something on the radio becomes formatted that helps destroy the music.”
Clarke is looking forward to returning to his beloved Philly with a group of musicians that he can’t wait to show off on stage.
“There are a lot of levels to the band,” says Clarke. “The ability to play our instruments is at the highest level. The band is vey soulful. It’s very communicative. People are amazed. ‘Look at that guy play and that guy play. The band is extremely exciting. I think people are going to love it.”
