Bassist and composer Stanley Clarke, like his good friend Chick Corea, with whom he has been touring this summer as part of the quartet Return Forever, has long been considered a musical genius and an innovator in the world of music.  Prior to embarking on this summer’s tour, which also includes Lenny White and Al Di Meola, Clarke took time to speak to Riveting Riffs Magazine about his current album The Toys Of Men, the changing landscape of the music industry, the Stanley Clarke Scholarship Fund and projects that he is developing.  If you read our earlier review for The Toys Of Men, an album whose opening and title track is comprised of six mini movements, you will know that we consider the album to be one of the more creative recordings to come our way in years.

“When I was touring with the band that plays on the record, Ruslan Siorta (keyboards / piano), Mads Tolling (violin), Jef Lee Johnson (guitar) and Ronald Bruner, Jr. (drums), they were very intelligent. These guys are all like little intellectuals and while they were watching the news, they were always arguing about something, as they discussed world affairs from different perspectives. I thought that it would be cool to write a series of songs, which had references to conflict and tension in the world. That was to be the theme of the piece. There would also be the challenge of doing it without lyrics, which is one of the luxuries that rock and roll musicians have. It is much more difficult to convey that (conflict and tension) with just music. We needed to figure out how we were going to do this, and get it to be explosive. That for me, was a great thing, because it made the musicians really get involved, particularly in that first piece. The notes were all written out, but that doesn’t always do it either. With music like this, interpretation is about sixty percent of the game. I learned that many years ago, playing with Chick Corea. Chick would write some amazing stuff, but it wouldn’t come to life, until somebody, and in particular the bands that we had, interpreted the notes,” says Clarke.

“The first song, “The Toys Of Men,” is broken down into words that describe each section (“Draconian,” “Fear,” “Chaos,” “Cosmic Intervention,” “The Opening Of The Gates,” and “God Light.”  It starts out pretty grim, but then it ends with hope. It’s funny, because I have done interviews with people who try to pull out some heavy, introspective thought, or something from it. I had a lot of relatives who went to the Vietnam War and I almost went myself. When you sit and talk to them, it is pretty damn simple, people are shooting bullets at you, you don’t know who they are, and you have no beef with them, but they are trying to kill you. In some places in “The Toys Of Men, we tried to pull those things out. I think that we did a pretty good job. I am never a person to say that something is one hundred percent, but it is pretty close,” Clarke says, and you can detect the sincerity in his voice, rather than a sense of smugness or his being boastful.

On the production side, Clarke was looking for a unique engineer, one who would grasp the essence of the music, without bringing with him significant overtones from other genres.  Enter in Ed Thacker, who in addition to engineering the title track, also lent his production skills to “Come On,” “Bad Asses,” La Cancion De Sofia,” “El Bajo Negro,” “Game,” and “Chateauvallon 1972.”

Clarke says, “We didn’t want to get a standard jazz engineer, and we didn’t want to get a standard rock engineer, someone who just does those kinds of bands all day. The guy we got (Thacker), I recorded with many years ago. He records rock bands, but he also listens to other things. He has a wide taste in music and he understood (what we were trying to accomplish).”

One of the other songs, “Jerusalem,” from the CD, The Toys Of Men, was inspired by a more tranquil moment. “I have been to Israel many times, and one of my favorite cities is Jerusalem. I am always astounded by this country (Israel) that is surrounded by its so-called enemies, and yet it is so calm there, particularly in Jerusalem. I remember getting up one morning while I was there, and it was very peaceful. I wanted to write a song about that feeling. I asked the keyboard player in the band to come up with a little sketch; he did, and then left me to finish it,” Clarke recalls.

Just like the chaos and fear depicted in the early movements of “The Toys Of Men,” Clarke sees parallels in the music industry, although he also detects hope and finds positive elements in the current music climate.