The Stanley Clarke Band — North Sea Jazz Festival, 2015

Full concert of The Stanley Clarke Band at the North Sea Jazz Festival, at Ahoy Rotterdam (Netherlands), on 10 July 2015. A pioneering bassist, co-founder of Return to Forever and a major figure in jazz-fusion and funk, Stanley Clarke leads a quartet in which he surrounds his virtuoso bass with young talents: keyboardists Beka Gochiashvili and Cameron Graves, and drummer Mike Mitchell. This filmed live concert showcases Clarke’s spectacular playing, between funky bass lines, fast slap and double-bass passages, in a repertoire of energetic, improvised fusion. The performance illustrates the cross-generational transmission dear to the bassist, who pushes his musicians into long instrumental flights and solo spotlights. Filmed in one of the Dutch festival’s halls, this full concert is aimed at fans of bass, funk and fusion. Clarke, whose 1970s solo records helped define funk bass, remains a commanding presence here, trading ideas with players decades younger. A document representative of his live work in the mid-2010s.