Translated material
Girl on top
Stanley Clarke and Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara performed at the House of Music
What are the benefits of concerts by jazz stars? Among other things, the fact that they begin basically without tricks - without warm-ups and tedious waiting with the atmosphere pumped up by pumped-up "roadies" running around the stage. In general, without any pop stuff. Although they could: this is Stanley Clarke, whom a large segment of music lovers in our country fell in love with in the distant 70s, when the musician played in the group Return to Forever...At seven and a penny, athletic musicians ran onto the stage, whose racial diversity is comparable to the teams of the World Cup: Japanese girl Hiromi Uehara (piano), Israeli of Ukrainian origin Ruslan Sirota (keyboards), African-American Ronald Bruner Jr. (drums). Their foreman Stanley Clarke (bass guitar, double bass) walked up to the microphone and asked the audience: How are you doin'? - as if the last time we saw each other was last week. We saw each other - the audience and Clarke - not last week, but many months ago. In general, Clark has already visited the Russian capital three times with different squads, and I don’t remember that at least once there was no excitement. This time Clark and his team gathered eighty percent of the Svetlanov Hall of the House of Music. Please note - at the height of summer.
Since Hiromi Uehara's name was listed separately on the poster, something needs to be said about her. I associate it with the duet album with Chick Corea. The album was called Duets, and was a double CD with concert performances of pieces by Corea, Hiromi, Jobim and the Beatles. In 2009, Clark and Hiromi recorded an album on which, among other things, the usual eclecticism a la Clark, there was a bizarre mixture of traditional Japanese music and Under the Bridge, a witty arrangement of the Red Hot Chili Peppers hit: the famous guitar picking of John Frusciante Hiromi plays the theme on the piano, which is originally sung by Anthony Kiedis, Clark performs on double bass. From the recordings it is clear how super-energetic, fast and witty Hiromi is, but at the concert all this was revealed in double size. Hiromi “recaptured” advances from Chick and Stanley, impressing the audience more, probably, than other musicians. The artistic Japanese woman at times outshone Clark himself.
And how lightning fast Clark plays slap on his Alembic Bass or chords on a double bass - we know that. But even though the focus is familiar, it doesn’t lose its freshness. The double bass players present at the concert nervously bit their nails.
But in general, the audience was charmed by all the musicians - everyone had solo pieces. Maybe too voluminous. Still, I wanted to listen to the group more: it creates an absolutely wonderful sound, which has something of jazz-rock of the 70s (which is natural), modern “smart” post-bop and even club rhythms of the 90s (I mean kind of broken drum patterns). Well, the compositions match: a mixture of something vaguely Japanese, rock and roll, mainstream jazz and even ambient. From the joint opuses of Clark and Hiromi, they took the play Take the Coltrane and 3 Wrong Notes. As an encore, they played Clark's understandable old hit, School Days.
Two hours pass like one minute. Not least because the group performs as a constructor: it can play as an acoustic piano trio with double bass, or maybe as an electric composition, with keys and bass guitar. A rare combination, by the way. But that’s why he and Clarke are there to demonstrate rarities.