Jazz Articles about Stanley Clarke

Stanley Clarke: Jazz in the Garden

by Terrell Kent Holmes
October 13, 2009

Bassist Stanley Clarke has explored many musical genres throughout his storied career, crossing and re-crossing musical boundaries to collaborate with everyone from Art Blakey and Joe Henderson to Chick Corea and Al Di Meola. So it's surprising that Jazz in the Garden is his maiden voyage as the leader of an acoustic band. Clarke's stylistic diversity is on display throughout this album. He uses his famous fret slapping technique during his solo on “Paradigm Shift." Pianist Hiromi ...

Stanley Clarke Trio: Jazz in the Garden

by Carl L. Hager
August 13, 2009

Stanley Clarke Trio Jazz In The Garden Heads Up International 2009

In the mid-1970s when Stanley Clarke rose to prominence playing electric bass in the powerhouse band Return To Forever, it had been his beautiful touch on acoustic bass that originally attracted the notice of the band's founder, keyboard player Chick Corea. The rock star flash and approbation that accompanied his ensuing solo efforts and collaborations with everyone from keyboard player George ...

Stanley Clarke: Jazz in the Garden

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 27, 2009

In questo album pieno di stimoli e spunti di riflessione troviamo tre musicisti, solitamente associati con un jazz elettrico tendente alla fusion, capaci di mettere assieme i loro enormi talenti per un incontro acustico che alterna sapientemente brani originali con standard jazzistici ("Take the Coltrane" e “Solar" ci sembrano in particolare evidenza) e non (la conclusiva rilettura di “Under the Bridge," tratta dal repertorio dei Red Hot Chili Peppers). Una delle componenti della buona riuscita di questo progetto risiede certamente ...

The Stanley Clarke Trio: Jazz In the Garden

by Jeff Winbush
May 25, 2009

Is there a more prodigiously talented, but more annoyingly inconsistent artist than Stanley Clarke? A trip through the Clarke catalog reveals some brilliant masterpieces, many that are merely okay and a few that are bona fide turkeys. Doing things with an electric bass that no one else can, it's precisely because he is so good that he has to keep restlessly experimenting to prevent becoming bored.

Rather than being bored on Jazz in the Garden, Clarke is at the top ...

The Stanley Clarke Trio: Jazz in the Garden

by Woodrow Wilkins
May 5, 2009

How do you make one jazz trio different from so many others? Have the diverse stylings of Stanley Clarke on bass, the experience of Lenny White on drums and the adventurous spirit of Hiromi on piano. The result is the Stanley Clarke Trio. Each member of this ensemble is a leader in his or her own right. Collectively, their collaborations have included such artists as Chick Corea, Taj Mahal, Maynard Ferguson and George Duke. Clarke also is ...

Return to Forever: Return to Forever: The Anthology

by Tom Greenland
August 11, 2008

In support of their 2008 reunion tour, Concord Records has released Return to Forever: The Anthology, a selective overview of the quartet's classic 'middle period.' Formed by principal composer/keyboardist Chick Corea, RTF included bassist Stanley Clarke, drummer Lenny White and guitarists Bill Connors or Al DiMeola. An alumnus of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969), inspired by Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, as well as Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes, Corea recorded two RTF albums with Clarke (a former compatriot ...

The Anthology

by John Kelman
June 5, 2008

One of the seminal fusion bands of the 1970s, keyboardist Chick Corea's Return to Forever, alongside like-minded but completely different groups including Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report, not only went to vinyl sales territory few jazz artists had gone before, but to arena tours more normally associated with big ticket rock groups. But the music of RTF was never meant to be intimate. The high velocity and high volume playing was far more fitting ...