Bassist Stanley Clarke made an indelible mark on jazz history with Return To Forever in the 1970s and has since gone on to become a major star at jazz festivals around the world, reuniting successfully with Chick Corea, Lenny White and Al DiMeola last year. In demand as a film composer Clarke has, nonetheless, had his career peaks and troughs along the way with a number of less successful projects failing to make the impact that he once would have made. But new album, featuring Clarke on double bass, could well be a return to form. As Andy Robson discovers, it’s an older, wiser Clarke who talks openly about his new approach to life after a painful divorce, how he finds himself in a new America now Barack Obama is President, which Clarke marks with a special composition.

“Whaddya mean Bill Bruford’s retired? He’s a year younger than me. You know what I’m gonna do? Now write this down: I’m going to call him for a session. We’ll see how ‘retired’ he is.”

One thing’s certain: Stanley Clarke has no ambition to hang up the bass or shred his compositions. “Musicians never retire. We get tired. But we don’t retire,” he says, as he laughs down the phone from his hill-top California home. “I remember Keith Jarrett doing his ‘retirement’ concert. I was there going ‘Oh yeah, sure man’ — he’s still out there.”And you bet still ‘out there’ is Clarke, who has “so many albums” coming out of his head he doesn’t know “what to do with them all.” 

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #132 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE Warner Jazz CD