The Stanley Clarke Band featuring Hiromi, Support: The Ronnie Scotts All Stars Wednesday 14th July - Friday 16th July

Stanley Clarke (basses), Hiromi Mihara (piano), Ronald Bruner, Jr. (drums), Ruslan Sirota (keyboards).

Stanley Clarke became the first bassist in history to headline tours, selling out shows worldwide, and have his albums certified gold.  The word “legend” was used to describe Stanley by the time he was 25 years old.  In 1997 Epic/Sony released: By this tender young age, Stanley was already a celebrated pioneer in fusion jazz music.  He was also the first bassist in history to double on acoustic and electric bass with equal virtuosity, power, and fire.  He had also invented two new instruments: the piccolo bass and the tenor bass.  The piccolo bass, built to his specifications by New York luthier Carl Thompson, is tuned one octave higher than the traditional electric bass guitar.  The tenor bass is a standard Alembic bass tuned up one fourth higher than standard.  With both of these instruments, Stanley’s melodic range is extended for playing in higher registers as he sees orchestrationally fit.

Since exploding into the jazz world in 1971, Stanley has worked with the likes of Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Pharaoh Saunders, Gil Evans, Stan Getz, and Chick Corea.

Hiromi Uehara first mesmerized the jazz community with her 2003 Telarc debut, Another Mind. The buzz started by her first album spread all the way back to her native Japan, where Another Mind shipped gold (100,000 units) and received the Recording Industry Association of Japan's (RIAJ) Jazz Album of the Year Award. The keyboardist/ composer's second release, Brain, won the Horizon Award at the 2004 Surround Music Awards, Swing Journal's New Star Award, Jazz Life's Gold Album, HMV Japan's Best Japanese Jazz Album, and the Japan Music Pen Club's Japanese Artist Award (the JMPC is a classical/jazz journalists club). Brain was also named Album of the Year in Swing Journal's 2005 Readers Poll. In 2006, Hiromi won Best Jazz Act at the Boston Music Awards and the Guinness Jazz Festival's Rising Star Award. She also claimed Jazzman of the Year, Pianist of the Year and Album of the Year in Swing Journal Japan's Readers Poll for her 2006 release, Spiral. Hiromi continues her winning streak with the 2007 release of Time Control 2008's Beyond Standard and this year's Place to Be.

'Place to Be' Reviews:

DAZZLING"
-New Yorker


"JAZZ PHENOM HIROMI EARNS RAVE REVIEWS FOR SOLO PIANO DEBUT ’PLACE TO BE’(Telarc)"
-OUT TODAY


"Extravagantly dynamic... A forceful presence on any stage..."
-The New York Times


"Whimsical and witty, moody and meandering."
-NPR.org


"One of Japan's best jazz keyboardists-composers."
-New York Magazine


"One of jazz piano's most brazenly virtuosic players."
-JazzTimes


"...one of the most explosively creative solo piano albums Keyboard Central has ever heard."
-Keyboard Magazine

INFO ABOUT NEW PROJECT!

STANLEY CLARKE STRIKES UP THE BAND
WITH HIS NEW CD SET TO BE RELEASED JUNE 15, 2010
Bassist assembles high-caliber players on The Stanley Clarke Band, with keyboardist Ruslan Sirota, drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr., featuring pianist Hiromi Uehara.

Renowned bassist Stanley Clarke’s new recording, The
Stanley Clarke Band, is scheduled for release on June 15,
2010, on the Heads Up International, a division of Concord
Music Group, and the Roxboro Entertainment Group label.
The album is produced by Clarke and Lenny White. Unlike his
previous acoustic bass release, Clarke feels that this album’s
music is new and different from just about anything he’s done
before. The range of collaborative material here has allowed
him to venture to new levels of experimentation utilizing his
arsenal of bass instruments. If forced, he compares this new
CD to the first three albums of his solo career on Nemperor
Records, Journey to Love, Stanley Clarke and School Days,
with long extended electric pieces – a kind of journey.
“Technically, it’s a Stanley Clarke record, but it’s very much a band-oriented record at the same time,” says Clarke. “I may be the leader, but everyone played an important role in what emerged.

If a project like this can be looked at like a ship, I’d be the one steering the ship and keeping everybody on course. But all hands were definitely on deck, and everyone played an important role in getting us to our destination.” Also new for Clarke, the album is made up of compositions from members of the band. He is joined by Stanley Clarke Band keyboardist Ruslan Sirota and drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr. – who
have been performing and recording with him for the better part of five years. Innovative young musicians, they have virtually grown up in Clarke’s band and bring a freshness he admires.