BWW Reviews: THE STANLEY CLARKE BAND Explodes at The Vogue

"I am Louis Armstrong," said the man under the spotlight at center stage. "No! You're the great Stanley Clarke!' a festivalgoer called out from the audience. Clarke is one of the few still ticking who has spent the better part of the century among the pantheon of jazz gods and goddesses.

And at 63, he is as comfortable as ever on his regal throne, overlooking world tours and global audiophiles. Having recorded classic albums and shared stage presence with the likes of Chick Corea, Paul McCartney, Sonny Rollins, and Aretha Franklin, among an incredible plethora of outstanding names, Clarke is in his element in 2015.

On tour with a spring-loaded, explosive quartet of young guns, Clarke's lead drives the kaleidoscopic frequencies into warp speed. His fingers glide along the bass with the exacting, and delicate mastery of a sound surgeon, playing with the heartstrings ever so penetratingly.

He played in honor of a friend who passed away. His musical eulogy was upbeat, moved by blissful memories of their Brazilian haunts, resonating with those wide-eyed peaks of life never so appreciated more than in trust.

And he's remained true to his origins. He was once a twenty-year-old bassist who rose to the plate alongside some of the most formidable heavy-hitters in music with the jazz-rock fusion supergroup, Return to Forever.

The Stanley Clarke band is now a hive of raging talent, twenty-something prodigies abounding with uncontrollable jazz prowess. Georgian pianist Beka Gochiashvili emblazoned his aural body determinedly into those lofty sonic realms where the high ones lay in eternal repose. On a luxurious drum kit, Michael Mitchell provoked the revolutionary earth of stone to fall away at the earthquake rumbles of cataclysmic, paradigm-shift rhythms.

The world has seen many of the founders of what is today known and loved as jazz music recede into mortal shade. One week before the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival began, the world lost Ornette Coleman.

"Sound is to people, what light is to the sun," said Coleman, who freed jazz. Stanley Clarke is one living legend embodying the original character of the liberated jazz musician. There is something in the sound of great contemporary jazz that has simply shed every last pretense and sounds improvised, free.

Thanks to the spiritual incandescence of The Stanley Clarke Band, jazz continues to carry the sound of freedom to succeeding generations throughout the seven continents.

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