{"id":9197,"date":"2024-07-20T21:49:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-21T02:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=9197"},"modified":"2024-08-01T17:36:14","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T22:36:14","slug":"forever-stanley-clarke-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/forever-stanley-clarke-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Forever: Stanley Clarke Previews N\u20224EVER\u2019s Performance at the 2024 Newport Jazz Festival (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After first being mass-produced by Fender in the 1950s, the electric bass, for many years, found a home in only the rhythm section. Its full power, to some extent, was obfuscated from view. Then came Stanley Clarke. Across his work with Return to Forever, the seminal fusion band he co-founded with Chick Corea, and records under his own name – particularly the groundbreaking School Days <\/em>(Nemperor\/Epic, 1976) – Clarke was the pioneer who revealed the true improvisatory capacity of the bass guitar. He effectively freed the instrument to be a lead solo instrument. As a result, musicians from Marcus Miller to Thundercat are artistically indebted to him. Clarke\u2019s electric contributions are so culturally significant that he is one of the few to have his instrument on permanent display at the Smithsonian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Clarke\u2019s plugged-in works are only half of the story. He started on the upright and played with such heavyweights as Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Horace Silver, and Art Blakey. Even with great success with the bass guitar, the rich wood of the double bass was never outside Clarke’s arms for long. As Christian McBride, himself a gifted doubler, noted<\/a>, \u201c[I]f there was a Bible of the history of doubling with both the double bass and the electric bass, Stanley would be its Genesis. It all starts with him.\u201d That is certainly true, at least in terms of treating both as a lead solo instrument. Such doubling on the basses is now, decades later, standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this backdrop – Clarke is even an NEA Jazz Master – it would have been all too easy for him to rest on his laurels. Instead, like many greats before him, he has focused on the future of the music he loves. Since his teenage years, he has taught others. And, over the last two decades, he has economically provided students opportunities through The Stanley Clarke Foundation<\/a>. Outside the educational sphere, he also shows an appreciation for musicians generations removed from him by regularly playing with them. Clarke’s newest group, N\u20224EVER, is a quintet in which the four younger members – pianist Beka Gochiashvili, drummer Jeremiah Collier, saxophonist Emilio Modeste, and guitarist Colin Cook – work with him to breathe new life into older Return to Forever tunes while also forging trails all their own. Lucky listeners can catch them at the Newport Jazz Festival on Saturday, August 3, 2024. It was an honor to sit down with Clarke to discuss his new group and their forthcoming record, the Newport Jazz Festival, and his relationship with his instrument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PostGenre: Do you remember when you first learned about the Newport Jazz Festival? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stanley Clarke: I think I first became aware of Newport when I was playing with Stan Getz around 1972. I think I met George Wein somewhere right around that time as well. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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PG: So, do you remember the first time you played at Newport?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SC: Well, the first time I played there, I think it was\u2026 I know Return to Forever played at Newport [Ed. Note: This was likely during the period the Jazz Festival was in New York; Return to Forever played there in 1973 and 1974]. I know I played at Newport in 1995 with Al DiMeola and Jean-Luc Ponty in the group we called Rite of Strings. And I also played with my own band there in 2003. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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