What If I Forget The Champagne

My dad is a music man. That’s probably where I get it from. I don’t remember there ever being silence in his house, and I loved it. His choice of avant-garde jazz music may not have been my thing, and I tried to drown it out with the most obscure metal and pop-punk that I could find, but that’s what set me down this path of being music-obsessed. Whenever I call my dad, he asks me what show I’m going to that night. Although I figure he won’t know who it is, I give in and tell him. He will then, inevitably, crack a joke about how that band is his favorite and that he has all of their records. I called him on Tuesday night, before my show of choice for the evening, but that was a different call. He asked who I was seeing. I timidly responded with the answer of Stanley Clarke, and I could almost see his eyes light up over the phone in a way. “If you get a chance to talk to him, ask him if he remembers 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa.”

I rolled my eyes, thinking this was just another joke, but it wasn’t. As the story goes, my dad and his buddy, who I know as Uncle Chuckles, were tasked with picking up Stanley Clarke and a few other musicians from the Des Moines airport for a gig at Drake University. My dad and Uncle Chuckles didn’t think about the fact that Stanley would have a super large upright bass, so when they got there, they quickly realized that they couldn’t fit in the car. With some quick thinking and grabbing Chuckles’ dad’s station wagon, they figured it out. This story has nothing to do with Tuesday night’s show at The Dakota, but for the first time in a long while, my dad won. He finally really did know who I was seeing, and he did have a story (and a hilarious one at that because my dad is a heck of a storyteller). This set the stage for a night of cozy love and appreciation in such a beautiful way.

Poster, ticket, and photo from that fateful 1973 show at Hoyt Sherman Auditorium in Des Moines, IA, courtesy of my amazing dad because, like me, he hoards all things music and, of course, he would know exactly where it was to send me copies.

Stanley Clarke is an absolute legend. Not only has he been performing for decades, but he has also played with everyone who is anyone. From being a founding member of Return to Forever (one of the first-ever jazz fusion bands) to working with Chick Corea, Stan Getz, Joe Farrell, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter… the list goes on and on. Stanley Clarke is one of those bassists who is in high demand but, even with that, seems to have never strayed away from his heart. What do I mean by that? Well, you could see and hear it during his set on Tuesday night. It didn’t matter if he was playing one of his originals or his all-time favorite song by Chick Corea; Stanley played every single note with a sense of heart and fiery passion. He may have been doing this for decades, but that didn’t stop him from having fun or at least looking like he was having fun. There was one point during the performance where he was literally “slappin’ da’ bass” in the way a child might, but he was creating beautiful and abstract art as he was doing it. You wanna talk about the joy of music? This was that in the spotlight, and beyond the talent, it was that heart and entertainment that really had me sold on Stanley Clarke.

This was Stanley Clarke’s show. It was his name (well, it was billed as “Stanley Clarke N*4Ever” but, still, his name) and photo on all of the advertisements for the show, but I feel like that was lost during the performance. That sounds like a bad thing, I know, but in this case, it was not. Stanley was surrounded by young musicians from all over the country. He allowed them to take the spotlight throughout the set. It was one of those shows that makes you want just to give up music altogether. The immense talent featured throughout the night was nothing short of jaw-dropping. At first, I thought it was violinist Evan Garr who had won the night with his truly innovative and insane solos, but then Jeremiah Collier would come in on the drums with some dizzying kind of solo that left you confused, trying to figure out exactly what he was doing to create all of the sounds and patterns he was making. Then there was Emilio Modeste on the saxophone who, like everyone else, would play these epic strings of notes that seemed almost impossible to follow but in a super amazing way but, just when Emilion would have me he was convince he was the star on stage, things would shift to the pianist (who is the one member I can not, for the life of me, remember the name of or find so my sincere apologies) and then, just like that, I felt that the pianist had stolen the show. There wasn’t a member on stage who didn’t steal the spotlight, and it ended up feeling more like a showcase of everyone else on stage than a Stanley Clarke show.

I was lost in this show. Honestly, I feel like I did a crap job on photos purely because I didn’t want to be wandering around in the shadows trying to capture moments. I wanted to be at my seat, letting those moments pick me up from this world and transport me somewhere else, so that’s what I did. Sure, I did my wandering, but what typically takes me a couple of songs only lasted a few moments before I rushed back to my table, placed my elbows on said table, rested my head in my hands, and just got lost. Every note was a journey. Every movement on stage was a wave. Every crescendo and decrescendo was expertly placed and perfectly dramatic. Every solo left me dizzy and swirling in a Disney’s Fantasia kind of world. This wasn’t just a show I was listening to or even watching; it was a show I was living, and it was truly nothing short of spectacular.