Clarke, Stanley (M.)

(b Philadelphia, 30 June 1951). American jazz fusion bass guitarist and bandleader. He first played the accordion, but quickly changed to the violin, then the cello and the double bass, before taking up the bass guitar, which he played in rhythm and blues and rock bands at school. In 1971 he played the double bass and the bass guitar with Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson. While touring and recording with Stan Getz the following year, he became a founder-member of Chick Corea’s group Return to Forever; from this time he concentrated on playing the electric instrument, and recorded eight albums with the band, as well as his own disc, School Days (1976, Nemperor). After leaving in 1977, Clarke initiated several projects as a leader, playing with both jazz musicians and rock groups. His single Sweet Baby (1981, Epic), made with the keyboard player George Duke, reached the US top 20, and in 1983 he toured the USA with Return to Forever. In the late 1980s and early 90s he recorded two albums with Animal Logic, a rock group including the singer Deborah Holland and the drummer Stewart Copeland (of the Police), and in 1991 he toured around Europe in a jazz quartet with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. His principal activities continue to be in pop, rock and rap music, including numerous contributions to film and television soundtracks.

Clarke plays rapid, precise bass lines, and is well known for his slapping style which produces a stinging attack and a sound rich in treble frequencies that enlivens his syncopated phrases. In the early 1970s, a few years before the emergence of Jaco Pastorius, Clarke was the pioneering exponent of the bass guitar as a melodic instrument in jazz fusion styles.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

R. Baggenaes: ‘Stanley Clarke’, Coda, xi/1 (1973), 8–11

C. Mitchell: ‘The Bass-ic Expansions of Stanley Clarke’, Down Beat, xlii/6 (1975), 14–15 [incl. discography]

C. Carman: ‘Stanley Clarke: Positively Modern Man’, Down Beat, xlv/13 (1978), 16–18

T. Mulhern: ‘Stanley Clarke’, Guitar Player, xiv/5 (1980), 66–94 [incl. discography] [Japanese edition]

CATHERINE COLLINS/R