| Stanley Clarke |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT STANLEY CLARKE | |
| 1951 births | |
| living people | |
| african american musicians | |
| american jazz double-bassists | |
| american jazz bass guitarists | |
| pennsylvania musicians | |
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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 physically outgrown the violin and the cello led him to playing Upright bass. 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 and Stan Getz . 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 '' ( 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 scores for '', '' What's Love Got To Do With It '' (the Tina Turner Story), '' Passenger 57 '', '' Higher Learning '', '' Poetic Justice ,'' '' Panther '', '' The Five Heartbeats '', Book Of Love , '' Little Big League ,'' and '' Romeo Must Die . '' He also scored a Michael Jackson video release directed by John 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"). 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
with Return to Forever
with Pharoah Sanders
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