Our Concert Review of The Stanley Clarke Band | Live at The Jazz Alley | TheUrbanMusicScene.com

The Stanley Clarke Band – Live in Concert at Jazz Alley on April 8, 2011

Seattle, Washington
By Peggy Oliver

One
of the first and few opportunities to experience a live concert was as a
college student in the mid seventies; having the privilege to see
Return to Forever featuring Chick Corea. The band’s young yet much
heralded bass player Stanley Clarke commanded the stage whether as a
sideman or soloist. His dexterity on the instrument – electric or
acoustic – was breathtaking. It was not always about the speed, but
expanding the harmonics, chords and its possibilities. Clarke had a full
arsenal of basses at his disposal including the tenor and piccolo
basses, which is the norm for his recording and concert repertoire. Now
the wise sage in his forty plus years of musical awesomeness, Clarke
brought some young jazz lions known as The Stanley Clarke Band to the
party at Jazz Alley in Seattle, Washington for his recent tour. Band
members Ruslan Sirota, Davey Nathan, Charles Altura and Ronald Bruner,
Jr. provided an equal amount of electricity to the funky, frantic,
fusion frame of mind that mostly harkened Return to Forever and Clarke’s
earlier triumphant jazz fusion era from the seventies and eighties.
Being the gracious leader that Clarke is, each member received plenty of
solo dues throughout the near ninety minute set consisting of very
lengthy song performances.

The set exploded from
the get-go with Corea’s “No Mystery” – originally off of Return to
Forever’s disc of the same name and the Grammy Award winning The Stanley
Clarke Band’s self-titled disc from 2010. Altura and Sirota delighted
the crowd with their nimble fingers on guitar and piano respectively.
Though Clarke fully handled his acoustic bass solos, his Latin
percussive taps on No Mystery are further proof of his proficiency. Also
included were two pieces by Joe Henderson, whom Clarke played with on
numerous occasions. One of the tunes (titles were not given) reflected a
bluesy jazz angle, especially with Nathan’s smoking organ solos. Not to
forget Bruner, Jr., whose drumming matched all the necessary time
shifts and moods throughout the set. The encore “Song for John” – an ode
to John Coltrane from Clarke’s 1975 project Journey to Love
– is a fascinating mix of classical, funk, Latin and dance; climaxed by
Clarke’s bass superbly framing Bruner Jr.’s melodic drumming. Besides
the crisp musicianship, I noticed most of the musicians (with the
occasional exception of Altura) were fully connected to each other by
their facial expressions of approval and excitement. I certainly
appreciate high quality musicianship. Yet when the players validate each
other on that stage, the performance level is deeply increased;
especially when jazz cats are on the same page.

I
was waiting for SCB to include some rock-induced fusion in the mix. Yet I
assumed Clarke was saving his signature Alembic bass guitar for those
moments (which was also on the stage) for the nightcap show. At times,
the solos could also been trimmed to include more material; and there is
plenty of memorable pieces in Clarke’s catalogs. That aside, Clarke has
found a new generation of musicians in SCB who should pass on Clarke’s
fusion traditions further down the line.

Peggy Oliver

The Urban Music Scene