Four-time Grammy Award winner Stanley Clarke is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated acoustic and electric bass players in the world. What’s more, he is equally gifted as a recording artist, performer, composer, conductor, arranger, producer and film score composer. A true pioneer in jazz and jazz-fusion, Clarke is particularly known for his ferocious bass dexterity and consummate musicality. Unquestionably, he has attained “living legend” status during his over 50-year career as a bass virtuoso. 

Clarke’s creativity has been recognized and rewarded in every way imaginable: gold and platinum records, Grammy Awards, Emmy nominations, virtually every readers and critics poll in existence, and more. In 2022 Clarke was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts as one of its four new Jazz Master honorees. This is the highest honor that the United States bestows on jazz artists. He also was Rolling Stone’s very first Jazzman of the Year and bassist winner of Playboy’s Music Award for ten straight years. Clarke was honored with Bass Player Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award and is a member of Guitar Player Magazine’s “Gallery of Greats.” In 2004 he was featured in Los Angeles Magazine as one of the Top 50 Most Influential People. He was honored with the key to the city of Philadelphia, a Doctorate from Philadelphia’s University of the Arts and put his hands in cement as a 1999 inductee into Hollywood’s “Rock Walk.” In 2011 he was honored with the highly prestigious Miles Davis Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival for his entire body of work. Clarke has won Downbeat Magazine’s Reader’s and Critics Poll for Best Electric Bass Player for many years. In September 2016 he became a part of the permanent collection displayed at the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington DC. 

Clarke has 13 Grammy Awards nominations. He has won four times. In 2011 he won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, The Stanley Clarke Band, with Ruslan Sirota and Ronald Bruner, Jr., featuring pianist Hiromi. He was also nominated for the “No Mystery” cut as Best Pop Instrumental Performance. The same year Clarke won a Latin Grammy for Best Instrumental Album with Return to Forever’s Forever, along with group members Chick Corea and Lenny White. Forever went on to win him the 2012 Grammy award for Best Instrumental Album. The Stanley Clarke Band: UP garnished him a 2015 Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Arrangement Instrumental or A Cappella for the song “Last Train to Sanity” and an NAACP Image Award nomination for Best Jazz Album.

Clarke is currently in the studio finishing off a new collection for release in 2024.

In 2023 It was announced that Clarke will partner with Santa Monica, CA’s, BroadStage as its Artist in Residence. This multi-year partnership includes performances, curation, and mentorship for Santa Monica College Music Department and Santa Monica High School Jazz students. Co-designed by Clarke, BroadStage Activation staff and school faculty, the residency provides direct access and training for students who are on the cusp of professional careers. The cornerstone of the residency is the launch in three years’ time of an intergenerational jazz festival in Santa Monica.

Unable to tour, Clarke’s Pandemic work involved producing and participating in a web series, Stanley Clarke’s Bass Nation. The series premiered November 2020. The project is about the dynamics of the music industry, recording and performing, and includes Stanley’s conversations with noted musicians, gear reviews, play-throughs and performances. 

Stanley Clarke was barely out of his teens when he exploded into the jazz world in 1971. Fresh out of the Philadelphia Academy of Music, he arrived in New York City and immediately landed jobs with famous bandleaders such as Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Pharaoh Saunders, Gil Evans and Stan Getz among others. As a young prodigy he was immediately recognized for his sense of lyricism and melody, which he had distilled from his bass heroes Charles Mingus, Scott LaFaro and others, as well as non-bass players like John Coltrane. 

Clarke fired the bass “shot heard round the world” that started the ‘70s bass revolution and paved the way for all bassists/soloists/bandleaders to follow. In 1974, he released his eponymous Stanley Clarke album, which featured the hit single, “Lopsy Lu.” Two years later, he released School Days, an album whose title track is now a bona fide bass anthem. The song, “School Days,” has since become a must-learn for nearly every up-and-coming bassist, regardless of genre. 

Leading the bass liberation movement, Clarke envisioned the bass as a viable, melodic solo instrument positioned at the front of the stage rather than in a background role and he was uniquely qualified to take it there. A pioneer at 25, he became the first jazz-fusion bassist in history to headline tours, sell out shows worldwide and craft albums that achieved gold status. He was also the first bassist in history to double on acoustic and electric bass with equal virtuosity, power and fire. In his ongoing efforts to push the bass to new limits, he invented two new instruments, the piccolo bass and the tenor bass. The piccolo bass is tuned one octave higher than the traditional electric bass. The tenor bass is tuned one fourth higher than standard. Both instruments have enabled Clarke to extend his melodic range to higher and more expressive registers.

One of Clarke’s musical visions became a reality in the early 1970’s when he met Chick Corea and eventually formed the seminal electric jazz/fusion band Return To Forever. RTF was a showcase for each of the quartet’s strong musical personalities, composing prowess and instrumental voices. In additions to their recent Grammy Award winning Forever CD, the band recorded eight albums, two of which were certified gold (Return To Forever and the classic Romantic Warrior). They also won a Grammy Award (No Mystery) and received numerous nominations while touring incessantly. In 2011 Clarke reunited with founding members, Chick Corea and Lenny White, for the highly anticipated and extremely successful Return To Forever 2-year, 90-city world tour. 

Always in search of new challenges, Clarke turned his boundless creative energy to film and television scoring in the mid-1980s. He has become one of the elite in-demand composers in Hollywood. Starting on the small screen with an Emmy-nominated score for Pee Wee’s Playhouse, he transitioned to the silver screen and now has well over 70 film and television credits to his name. As composer, orchestrator, conductor and performer he has scored such blockbuster films as Boyz ‘N the Hood, What’s Love Got To Do With It?, The Transporter, Romeo Must Die,  Passenger 57, Poetic Justice, Best Man Holiday and The Five Heartbeats just to name a few. He even scored the Michael Jackson video Remember the Time, directed by John Singleton. Most recently he scored the lauded 2019 documentary “Halston.”  In 2020 he scores the music for the Hulu show Woke. In 2014 he accepted an invitation to become a member of the exclusive Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

“Film has given me the opportunity to write large orchestral scores and to compose music not normally associated with myself,” says Clarke. “It’s given me the chance to conduct orchestras and arrange music for various types of ensembles. It’s been a diverse experience for me musically, made me a more complete musician, and focused my skills completely.” His 1995 release, Stanley Clarke at the Movies, is a testament to this heightened level of musicianship. 

In addition to touring with his own band, Clarke has always enjoyed the challenge of collaborating with other artists on tour. Clarke teamed up with keyboardist George Duke in 1981 to form the Clarke/Duke Project. Together they scored a top 20 pop hit with “Sweet Baby,” recorded three albums. Over the last decade he toured with George Duke in 2006 and the Clarke/Duke 4: Bring It Tour in 2012 and 2013, until Duke’s untimely death. Clarke’s involvement in additional projects as leader or active member include: Jeff Beck (world tours, 1979), Keith Richards’ New Barbarians (world tour, 1980), Animal Logic (with Stuart Copeland, two albums and tours, 1989), the “Superband” (with Larry Carlton, Billy Cobham, Najee and Deron Johnson, 1993-1994), The Rite of Strings (with Jean-Luc Ponty and Al Di Meola, 1995 and 2004) Vertu’ (with Lenny White, 1999) and “Trio!” (with Bela Fleck and Jean Luc Ponty, 2005.) In 2008 Clarke teamed up with fellow bass titans Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten – collectively known as S.M.V. – and released Thunder, their earth shaking debut collaboration. In 2012 he toured jazz festivals with Stewart Copeland (Police drummer) in Europe in addition trio dates with Chick Corea and legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette.

Clarke passionately believes in giving back to help young musicians hone their skills. He and his wife Sofia established The Stanley Clarke Foundation eighteen years ago as a charitable organization, which offers scholarships to talented young musicians each year. Clarke strongly feels that those who have had success in realizing their own vision have a duty to help others in their struggle to emerge. Early in 2007 Clarke released a DVD entitled Night School: An Evening with Stanley Clarke and Friends chronicling the third annual Stanley Clarke Scholarship Concert with proceeds going to the fund. The concert features diverse group of musicians that include Stevie Wonder, Wallace Roney, Bela Fleck, Sheila E., Stewart Copeland, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Wayman Tisdale, Marcus Miller and so many more. The DVD has garnered outstanding reviews since its release.

Stanley Clarke, to this day, remains as passionate about music as that young teen prodigy from Philly with big dreams. Like the man himself, his biography is a continuous work in progress. Legend is a word that has been associated with Stanley since he was 25, yet he remains unpretentious, preferring simple pleasures in the peaceful canyons where he resides in Los Angeles. 

Since Hiromi’s debut album Another Mind (2003), the world-renowned pianist’s sound has evolved with every release, erasing the lines between jazz and classical, composition and improvisation. Now she changes tack again with her heaviest, funkiest album yet: Sonicwonderland.

Hiromi describes the hard-hitting nine-song set as “a new journey of adventure,” one that began in her imagination. As motifs, phrases, and timbres blossomed in her mind, she began thinking about players who could help her realize this specific sound. “Making a record is like making a movie, and I’m the director looking for the perfect actor for each role.” For her new quartet, Hiromi’s Sonicwonder, she cast bassist Hadrien Feraud, drummer Gene Coye, and trumpet player Adam O’Farrill.

The genesis of Sonicwonder begins in 2016, when Feraud subbed for bassist Anthony Jackson at some gigs with Hiromi’s then-current trio. “When I was playing with Hadrien in that setting, I started to feel like I wanted to write some music just for him,” she recalls. “That was the first thing that made me want to go in this direction, and what made me want it to form this band.”

For the drums she sought a warm, organic sound, rendered with joy and humor, and thought of Coye, who she’d met when they played shows together with the Stanley Clarke Band. Feraud and Coye both reside in Los Angeles, and had made music together many times, another important consideration. “I feel that it's always very important to have great chemistry between bassist and drummer.”

As she continued composing, Hiromi heard one more instrument in her head: trumpet. Again, she wanted a very specific sound. “What I really love about the trumpet is its low mid-range, and I was looking for somebody who can play in that range with a beautiful tone.” After reviewing some of O’Farrill’s performances online, she invited him to a casual jam session, and the ensemble was complete.

The opening cut on Sonicwonderland, “Wanted,” mirrors that assemblage. It starts with Hiromi’s piano, followed by bass, then drums, and finally trumpet. “I was looking for these imaginary band members, and that’s the order I found them in.” Their origin story complete, the foursome’s adventure officially commences with the title tune – and another musical wrinkle.

Longtime fans may recall that earlier albums Time Control (2007) and Beyond Standard (2008), credited to Hiromi’s Sonicbloom, emphasized electronic timbres. That’s the case here, too. “When I use this word, ‘sonic,’ that's like my electric side. I’m playing a lot more keyboards compared to my other bands.” “Sonicwonderland” celebrates sounds made with her Nord Lead A1 analog modeling synthesizer and Nord Electro 5D. “When I write on this keyboard, I always end up writing something totally different from when I write on the piano.”

Sonicwonderland sounds worlds away from Hiromi’s previous studio album, Silver Lining Suite (2021), which featured a string quartet, but the two records share one aspect in common: both expand on ideas introduced during her “One Minute Portrait” series of Instagram collaborations during the global pandemic. “I was playing mainly with people who improvised, and Instagram only allowed one minute of video, so you only heard about 20 seconds of what I’d composed, a certain motif or distinctive phrase, in each one.” The original “Utopia” featured Feraud, “so that was an easy transition.” The energetic “Go Go,” previously a pairing with Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, likewise lent itself well to further exploration by Hiromi’s Sonicwonder.

Singer Oli Rockberger, a classmate from Hiromi’s days at Berklee College of Music, joins the group on “Reminiscence.” “We’ve been great friends for many years.” So even though he didn’t know at the time, he was there from the song’s inception. “I called Oli and said, ‘I’ve written this song and I'm hearing your voice in my head. Would you like to co-write the lyrics?’” The finished composition was initially set aside but came to fruition once Hiromi realized how well O’Farrill’s trumpet could complement Rockberger’s singing.

Sonicwonderland was recorded in just three and a half days at Skywalker Sound Stage in Nicasio, California, where she’d previously made her solo piano album Spectrum (2019). Pre-production was minimal but robust: two days of rehearsal in New York, followed by a dozen back-to-back shows in Minneapolis and Oakland. “It was a great way to slide into the session,” she says. “We went into the studio and could play like we play live,” right down to using the exact same piano from the Oakland club gigs which is prepared by the same piano technician Shintaro Hoshino.

For the finishing touch, Hiromi asked Lou Beach – the artist responsible for the look of classics by Weather Report, Bill Withers, and countless others – to illustrate the album sleeve. “I’ve been a fan of his art for so long, and I sent him a couple of demos.” Beach’s response was immediate and enthusiastic: I know just what to draw! “He came back with this cover, and it's just amazing, like the sound becomes visual.”

“Whenever I play shows or make an album, I feel like it's a journey to find the people who can feel a deep connection to what I'm doing right now,” concludes Hiromi. “Hopefully, with Sonicwonderland, I can connect to fans that listened to my music before and to new listeners, too.”

Born in Hamamatsu, Japan, Hiromi began studying piano when she was six years old. When she was 17, Chick Corea invited her to play with him at a Tokyo concert. She attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where she was mentored by jazz legend Ahmad Jamal. A prolific artist, Sonicwonderland is Hiromi’s twelfth studio full-length and second album of 2023; earlier this year she recorded the soundtrack to Blue Giant, an animated feature film based on the popular manga.

Hiromi is a perennial favorite on DownBeat’s Annual Critics and Readers Poll, and has performed at the world’s finest jazz festivals, including Montreux, Umbria, North Sea, Newport, and Monterey. Her work has been celebrated by media including the New York Times, NPR and NPR Music, and the Washington Post, and she was a featured performer at the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony in 2021.

Applauded by The Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music,” and by The New Yorker as “independent-minded,” multi-GRAMMY®-nominated PUBLIQuartet is an improvising string quartet whose repertoire blends genres and highlights American multiculturalism.

PUBLIQuartet rose on the music scene as winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild New Music/New Places award, and in 2019 garnered Chamber Music America’s prestigious Visionary Award for outstanding and innovative approaches to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music. PQ’s genre-bending programs range from newly commissioned pieces to re-imaginations of classical works featuring open-form improvisations that expand the techniques and aesthetic of the traditional string quartet.

PUBLIQuartet has held artist residencies at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Sawdust, and has performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to the Montreal, Newport and Detroit Jazz Festivals. Their 2016 appearance on The Colbert Report, “Requiem for a Debate” – in which they improvised a live soundtrack to the third presidential debate – not only received over a million views, but prompted The Washington Post to declare them “the winner...indubitably.” Their 2023-2024 season includes performances at USC and the Library of Congress; with the New York City Ballet; and with jazz artists including Hiromi, Diane Monroe, and Magos Herrera.

The quartet’s latest album, the GRAMMY®-nominated What Is American, released in June 2022 on the Bright Shiny Things label, explores resonances between contemporary, blues, jazz, freely-improvised, and rock-inflected languages, all of which trace their roots back to the Black and Indigenous musical traditions that inspired Dvorak’s “American” String Quartet (Op. 96). The album also includes CARDS 11-11-2020, written by Roscoe Mitchell for PUBLIQuartet, as well as works by Ornette Coleman, Rhiannon Giddens, and Vijay Iyer.

Committed to creating an inclusive performance space, supporting living composers of varying genres, and expanding the classical canon, PUBLIQuartet was the inaugural ensemble-in-residence for Carnegie Hall’s PlayUSA program in 2021-2022, working with high school music classes across the country on a large-scale creative project called Reflections on Resilience. Their innovative PUBLIQ Access program has promoted emerging composers by presenting a wide variety of underrepresented music for string quartet – from classical, jazz and electronic, to non-notated, world and improvised music. 

Other unique projects include MIND | THE |GAP, a series of creative projects developed by PQ that weave together different styles of music via group composition, arranging, and improvisation. These unique works range from “Bird in Paris” (Claude Debussy meets Charlie Parker) to more recent extended works including Reflections on Beauty, a multimedia celebration of the life and legacy of Madam C.J. Walker featuring visual projections and narration by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles.

Founded in 2010, PUBLIQuartet is based in New York City.