He recounts his personal highlights from the ’06 BPL: “There were two: The first was when I initally got to the hotel and I walked into the lobby, and there looked to be about a hundred bass players gathered. A young lady approached me and said she was from bass-girls.com, and I thought: Yup, I’m definitely in the right place! The other was the lick-trading in ‘School Days.’ That moment was complete joy; everybody in the house was smiling. I thought: This is what its all about. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
This year, Stanley is hosting Spellbound and will be showcasing the gear that he’s been developing as part of Spellbinder, with Tom Lieber, aiming to provide high-quality instruments available to musicians of all levels. This includes the limited edition Spellbinder Bass II, the Mando Piccolo Bass, the Acoustic Contrebass and the Blue combo in conjunction with SWR. His ’07 Clinic with Oskar Cartaya featured a group discussion on a standard method for electric bass involving as much of the audience as possible including Steve Bailey, Tony Levin and Chuck Rainey.
Bass Player LIVE! Exhibitor Spotlight: SWR
The SWR Spellbinder Blue combo makes its debut at BPL ’08, developed with Tom Lieber and Stanley Clarke.
Bass Player LIVE! Lesson: "School Days"
At 9:20 PM, October 26th, 2006, Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten gave us a stunning glimpse both of SMV to come and the sheer brilliance the trio could muster through their performance of Clarke’s “School Days.” The man himself said that “I immediately realized it was historical for us and the audience. Marcus and Victor are so intuitive, and we each found our range. Marcus was slamming down the groove and Victor started playing these harmonics for the chords, and I was like: Man, this is so bad-ass!” Signature Alembic tenor bass in hand, Stanley lead the way with his classic “sheet of sound” technique. This extract showcases his rapid pentatonic attack starting with a G7 minor pentatonic run that switches to A major, all in ADGC tuning.
