Stanley Clarke Discography

Related Artists

Songs By

Robert Brookins :: Chick Corea :: McCoy Tyner :: Neville Potter

Member Of

The Visitors :: Return to Forever

Influenced By

Paul Chambers :: Billy Cox :: Scott LaFaro :: Jimmy Blanton :: John Coltrane :: Miles Davis :: Oscar Pettiford

Followers

Living Colour :: Primus :: Billy Sheehan :: Tony Saunders :: Level 42 :: Jorge Pescara :: Wornell Jones :: Les Claypool :: Mr. Big :: Alex Malheiros :: Anna Ly :: Billy Johnson :: Nathan East :: Gary King :: Gerald Veasley

Similar Artists

Jaco Pastorius :: Jeff Berlin :: Mike Henderson :: The Crusaders :: Steve Swallow :: Alex Blake :: John Patitucci

See also Biography Index (S) :: Filmography Index (S) :: Discography Index (S)

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. He was introduced to the bass as a schoolboy "by accident," when he arrived late on the day instruments were distributed to students and acoustic bass was one of the few remaining selections. [1] 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.[citation needed] His albums Stanley Clarke (1974) and Journey to Love (1975) are also notable.


Film and Television
From the small screen scores for ABC`s short-lived series A Man Called Hawk and an Emmy nominated score for Pee-wee`s Playhouse Clarke moved on to the silver screen as 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 actioner, The Transporter, starring Jason Statham and 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.

Stanley Clarke became the first bassist in history who could double on acoustic and electric bass with equal ferocity, as well as the first bassist ever to headline tours, selling out shows worldwide. In 1976 Clarke recorded what is now considered to be the must-know bass anthem, “School Days.” To this day, accomplished and aspiring bassists continue to imitate his style seeking to master his pioneered percussive slap funk technique.


[edit] 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. A Stanley Clark Signature Model bass guitar is produced by Alembic. Clarke also utilizes full-range amplification for his basses, more in keeping with a keyboardist`s rig than a bassist`s or guitarists. To extend his melodic range to play higher registers as he sees orchestrationally fit, he invented two new instruments: the piccolo bass and the tenor bass.


[edit] Physical size
Clarke is 6`3" and his Alembic basses tend to be short-scale (in this case