His Full Story -- Chick Corea, Return to Forever, and a Life Spent Redefining What the Bass Can Do
Stanley Clarke is one of the greatest bass players who has ever lived. As a co-founder of Return to Forever alongside Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, and Lenny White, he helped define the sound of jazz fusion in the 1970s and created a body of work that remains foundational to anyone who plays the instrument. His technique -- both on electric and upright bass -- expanded what people believed was possible on the instrument and set a standard that generations of players have spent careers trying to approach.
In this conversation with Elmo, Stanley opens up about his full story -- the origins, the Return to Forever years, what Chick Corea meant to him as a creative partner and a human being, and how he thinks about a career that has now stretched across more than five decades. This is one of the most complete and candid conversations Stanley Clarke has given, and it is essential listening for anyone who cares about jazz, fusion, or the bass.
"Chick didn't just play piano. He opened a door in music that most of us didn't even know was there."
The full inside account of how Return to Forever came together, what it was like to be in that band at the height of its creative power, and what the music was trying to do that nothing else at the time was doing. His account of the specific creative dynamic between himself, Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, and Lenny White -- and why that particular combination of people produced something that has never been replicated.
His account of what Chick Corea was like as a musician, a bandleader, and a person -- the specific qualities that made him one of the most extraordinary creative forces in jazz, and what it meant to lose him. One of the most personal and revealing portraits of Chick Corea from someone who knew him as well as anyone in music.
His account of how he came to push the bass into places no one had taken it before -- the specific technical developments, the musical philosophy behind them, and what he was hearing in his head that the instrument couldn't yet do. The story of one of the most consequential expansions of an instrument's role in the history of jazz and popular music.
What it was actually like to be at the center of jazz fusion in the 1970s -- the creative explosion, the commercial possibilities, the critical resistance, and the specific musical conversations that defined that moment. His account of what fusion was actually about versus what people thought it was about, and why it mattered.
How Stanley Clarke has sustained a career of this length and this quality -- the creative renewals, the reinventions, the collaborations that have kept him engaged, and the moments where he had to find a reason to keep going. His account of what keeps a career alive when you have already achieved everything the field had to offer.
His perspective on the current generation of bass players -- what they are doing that excites him, what they are missing, and what he wishes he could tell every young musician who is serious about the instrument. The view from the top of one of music's most extraordinary careers.
The Return to Forever origin story: his specific and detailed account of how the band came together -- the conversations with Chick, the creative vision behind it, and what it felt like to be building something that none of them had a roadmap for. The inside account of one of jazz's most important formations.
On Chick Corea: his most personal and unguarded account of what Chick was like -- the things that made him extraordinary, the things that made him difficult, and what Stanley misses most now that he is gone. A tribute that is honest rather than reverential, and more powerful for it.
The technique conversation: his specific account of how he developed his approach to the bass -- the practice regimen, the specific discoveries, and the moments where he realized the instrument could do something he hadn't yet found a way to do. One of the most technically illuminating bass conversations you will find from any player at his level.
What he tells young players: his direct, specific, and hard-won advice for anyone who is serious about the bass and about music -- not the inspirational version but the practical one, from someone who has spent fifty years finding out what actually matters.