Four-time Grammy Award winner Stanley Clarke is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated acoustic and electric bass players in the world. What’s more, he is equally gifted as a recording artist, performer, composer, conductor, arranger, producer and film score composer. A true pioneer in jazz and jazz-fusion, Clarke is particularly known for his ferocious bass dexterity and consummate musicality. Unquestionably, he has attained “living legend” status during his over 50-year career as a bass virtuoso. 

Clarke’s creativity has been recognized and rewarded in every way imaginable: gold and platinum records, Grammy Awards, Emmy nominations, virtually every readers and critics poll in existence, and more. In 2022 Clarke was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts as one of its four new Jazz Master honorees. He also was Rolling Stone’s very first Jazzman of the Year and bassist winner of Playboy’s Music Award for ten straight years. Clarke was honored with Bass Player Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award and is a member of Guitar Player Magazine’s “Gallery of Greats.” In 2004 he was featured in Los Angeles Magazine as one of the Top 50 Most Influential People. He was honored with the key to the city of Philadelphia, a Doctorate from Philadelphia’s University of the Arts and put his hands in cement as a 1999 inductee into Hollywood’s “Rock Walk.” In 2011 he was honored with the highly prestigious Miles Davis Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival for his entire body of work. Clarke has won Downbeat Magazine’s Reader’s and Critics Poll for Best Electric Bass Player for many years. In September 2016 he became a part of the permanent collection displayed at the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington DC. 

Clarke has 13 Grammy Awards nominations. He has won four times. In 2011 he won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, The Stanley Clarke Band, with Ruslan Sirota and Ronald Bruner, Jr., featuring pianist Hiromi. He was also nominated for the “No Mystery” cut as Best Pop Instrumental Performance. The same year Clarke won a Latin Grammy for Best Instrumental Album with Return to Forever’s Forever, along with group members Chick Corea and Lenny White. Forever went on to win him the 2012 Grammy award for Best Instrumental Album. The Stanley Clarke Band: UP garnished him a 2015 Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Arrangement Instrumental or A Cappella for the song “Last Train to Sanity” and an NAACP Image Award nomination for Best Jazz Album.

Unable to tour, Clarke’s Pandemic work has involved producing and participating in his new web series, Stanley Clarke’s Bass Nation. The series premiered November 2020. The project is about the dynamics of the music industry, recording and performing, and includes Stanley’s conversations with noted musicians, gear reviews, play-throughs and performances. He also has a slew of interesting personal anecdotes, which he imparts regarding his experiences. Guests include Carlitos de Puerto, Jr., Verdine White, drummer Clayton Cameron, Jack Cassady, Marcus Miller, Steven “Thundercat” Brunner, Salar Nader, Nik West, Brady Watts, Sekou Bunch, Karl Vincent, Francesca Alinovi, Hadrien Feraud, Aaron Cruz II, Les July, and more.

“We are giving life lessons for musicians through the eyes of bass players. I’ve played with many musicians and these lessons are a common denominators running through all master musicians,” states Clarke. “I believe that our Bass Nation platform will be equally interesting to fans and non-musicians. Musician life lessons can also be applied to the lives of all.”

Clarke’s album, The Message, was released on Mack Avenue Records June 2018. Clarke considers the new album “funky, melodic, musical, contemporary and fresh with a rich multi-genre influence.” Including compositions from his band members, Beka Gochiashvili, Mike Mitchel and Cameron Graves, the album swells with an abundance of strength, soul and astounding musicianship. Guest artists, rapper/beatboxer Doug E. Fresh, trumpeter Mark Isham and saxophonist Doug Webb as well as Steve Blum and vocalists Skeyler Kole and Trevor Wesley, also join Clarke on the new album. Propelled by the youthfulness of his bandmates, Clarke reaches even deeper into his bag of tricks with the incredibly satisfying The Message.

His most recent release is music he composed for the 2019 documentary, Halston. Stanley’s  soundtrack was release on Node Records. 

Stanley Clarke was barely out of his teens when he exploded into the jazz world in 1971. Fresh out of the Philadelphia Academy of Music, he arrived in New York City and immediately landed jobs with famous bandleaders such as Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Pharaoh Saunders, Gil Evans and Stan Getz among others. As a young prodigy he was immediately recognized for his sense of lyricism and melody, which he had distilled from his bass heroes Charles Mingus, Scott LaFaro and others, as well as non-bass players like John Coltrane. 

Clarke fired the bass “shot heard round the world” that started the ‘70s bass revolution and paved the way for all bassists/soloists/bandleaders to follow. In 1974, he released his eponymous Stanley Clarke album, which featured the hit single, “Lopsy Lu.” Two years later, he released School Days, an album whose title track is now a bona fide bass anthem. The song, “School Days,” has since become a must-learn for nearly every up-and-coming bassist, regardless of genre. 

Leading the bass liberation movement, Clarke envisioned the bass as a viable, melodic solo instrument positioned at the front of the stage rather than in a background role and he was uniquely qualified to take it there. A pioneer at 25, he became the first jazz-fusion bassist in history to headline tours, sell out shows worldwide and craft albums that achieved gold status. He was also the first bassist in history to double on acoustic and electric bass with equal virtuosity, power and fire. In his ongoing efforts to push the bass to new limits, he invented two new instruments, the piccolo bass and the tenor bass. The piccolo bass is tuned one octave higher than the traditional electric bass. The tenor bass is tuned one fourth higher than standard. Both of these instruments have enabled Clarke to extend his melodic range to higher and more expressive registers.

One of Clarke’s musical visions became a reality in the early 1970’s when he met Chick Corea and eventually formed the seminal electric jazz/fusion band Return To Forever. RTF was a showcase for each of the quartet’s strong musical personalities, composing prowess and instrumental voices. In additions to their recent Grammy Award winning Forever CD, the band recorded eight albums, two of which were certified gold (Return To Forever and the classic Romantic Warrior). They also won a Grammy Award (No Mystery) and received numerous nominations while touring incessantly. In 2011 Clarke reunited with founding members, Chick Corea and Lenny White, for the highly anticipated and extremely successful Return To Forever 2-year, 90-city world tour. 

Always in search of new challenges, Clarke turned his boundless creative energy to film and television scoring in the mid-1980s. He has become one of the elite in-demand composers in Hollywood. Starting on the small screen with an Emmy-nominated score for Pee Wee’s Playhouse, he transitioned to the silver screen and now has well over 65 film and television credits to his name. As composer, orchestrator, conductor and performer he has scored such blockbuster films as Boyz ‘N the Hood, What’s Love Got To Do With It?, The Transporter, Romeo Must Die,  Passenger 57, Poetic Justice, Best Man Holiday and The Five Heartbeats just to name a few. He even scored the Michael Jackson video Remember the Time, directed by John Singleton. Most recently he scored the lauded 2019 documentary “Halston.”  In 2020 he scores the music for the Hulu show Woke. In 2014 he accepted an invitation to become a member of the exclusive Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

“Film has given me the opportunity to write large orchestral scores and to compose music not normally associated with myself,” says Clarke. “It’s given me the chance to conduct orchestras and arrange music for various types of ensembles. It’s been a diverse experience for me musically, made me a more complete musician, and focused my skills completely.” His 1995 release, Stanley Clarke at the Movies, is a testament to this heightened level of musicianship. 

In addition to touring with his own band, Clarke has always enjoyed the challenge of collaborating with other artists on tour. Clarke teamed up with keyboardist George Duke in 1981 to form the Clarke/Duke Project. Together they scored a top 20 pop hit with “Sweet Baby,” recorded three albums. Over the last decade he toured with George Duke in 2006 and the Clarke/Duke 4: Bring It Tour in 2012 and 2013, until Duke’s untimely death. Clarke’s involvement in additional projects as leader or active member include: Jeff Beck (world tours, 1979), Keith Richards’ New Barbarians (world tour, 1980), Animal Logic (with Stuart Copeland, two albums and tours, 1989), the “Superband” (with Larry Carlton, Billy Cobham, Najee and Deron Johnson, 1993-1994), The Rite of Strings (with Jean-Luc Ponty and Al Di Meola, 1995 and 2004) Vertu’ (with Lenny White, 1999) and “Trio!” (with Bela Fleck and Jean Luc Ponty, 2005.) In 2008 Clarke teamed up with fellow bass titans Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten – collectively known as S.M.V. – and released Thunder, their earth shaking debut collaboration. In 2012 he toured jazz festivals with Stewart Copeland (Police drummer) in Europe in addition trio dates with Chick Corea and legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette.

Not one to rest on the laurels from his various pursuits as a composer, performer and recording artist of more than 40 albums and 70-plus film scores, the Fall of 2010 marked Clarke’s launch of his own record label, Roxboro Entertainment Group. This business venture includes music publishing for his own and other musicians’ work, as well as the development of various projects aimed at music education. So far Roxboro Entertainment has released CDs from guitarist Lloyd Gregory, multi-instrumentalist Kennard Ramsey, keyboardist Sunnie Paxson, Ukrainian-born pianist, arranger and keyboardist Ruslan Sirota and young jazz piano prodigy Beka Gochiashvili from Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. 

Clarke passionately believes in giving back to help young musicians hone their skills. He and his wife Sofia established The Stanley Clarke Foundation seventeen years ago as a charitable organization, which offers scholarships to talented young musicians each year. Clarke strongly feels that those who have had success in realizing their own vision have a duty to help others in their struggle to emerge. Early in 2007 Clarke released a DVD entitled Night School: An Evening with Stanley Clarke and Friends chronicling the third annual Stanley Clarke Scholarship Concert with proceeds going to the fund. The concert features diverse group of musicians that include Stevie Wonder, Wallace Roney, Bela Fleck, Sheila E., Stewart Copeland, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Wayman Tisdale, Marcus Miller and so many more. The DVD has garnered outstanding reviews since it’s release.

Stanley Clarke, to this day, remains as passionate about music as that young teen prodigy from Philly with big dreams. Like the man himself, his biography is a continuous work in progress. Legend is a word that has been associated with Stanley since he was 25, yet he remains unpretentious, preferring simple pleasures in the peaceful canyons where he resides in Los Angeles.

Japan has produced an impressive assemblage of jazz pianists, from Toshiko Akiyoshi and Makoto Ozone. And now, well into the change of the 21st century, the pianist/composer Hiromi is the latest in that line of amazing musicians. Ever since the 2003 release of her debut Telarc CD, Another Mind, Hiromi has electrified audiences and critics east and west, with a creative energy that encompasses and eclipses the boundaries of jazz, classical and pop parameters, taking improvisation and composition to new heights of complexity and sophistication. Her latest album, the vivid solo piano outing Spectrum, offers a dazzling evocation of the vibrant array of colors that imbue her music.

With her 2009 solo debut Place to Be, Hiromi decided to go it alone once a decade in order to capture the ways in which her experiences and personal growth had shaped her sound during the preceding years. Recorded shortly before her 40th birthday, Spectrum celebrates the maturity and depth that have enriched Hiromi’s composing and playing over the course of her 30s, years in which she’s crisscrossed the globe thrilling audiences and embarked on collaborations with some of jazz’s most inventive artists.

“The sound of a pianist changes with age and with every experience in life,” Hiromi says. “I wanted to set these milestones so that I can see from the outside how I’ve changed and grown.”

Born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan on March 26, 1979, Hiromi’s piano lessons started when she was six. Her first teacher, Noriko Hikida, encouraged her to access both the intuitive and technical aspects of music, introducing the concept of color to her approach to the piano.  “Her energy was always so high, and she was so emotional,” Hiromi says of Hikida. “When she wanted me to play with a certain kind of dynamics, she wouldn’t say it with technical terms. If the piece was something passionate, she would say, ‘Play red.’ Or if it was something mellow, she would say, ‘Play blue.’ I could really play from my heart that way, and not just from my ears.”

Hikida also exposed Hiromi to jazz and introduced her to the great pianists Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson. She enrolled in the Yamaha School of Music at age six and started to write music at that time.

Hiromi moved to the United States in 1999, and she matriculated at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, which extended her artistic sensibilities. “It expanded so much the way I see music,” she says. “Some people dig jazz, some people dig classical music, some people dig rock. Everyone is so concerned about who they like. They always say, ‘This guy is the best,’ ‘No, this guy is the best.’ But I think there are so many great ones. I really don’t have barriers to any type of music. I could listen to everything from metal to classical music to anything else.”

Among her mentors at Berklee was the veteran jazz bassist/arranger Richard Evans, who teaches arranging and orchestration. It was Evans who took Hiromi’s demo tape to his friend and collaborator: the legendary pianist/bandleader Ahmad Jamal. “[Professor Evans] really liked how I played,” Hiromi fondly recalled. “And Ahmad loved the demo – I couldn’t believe it! He’s been very encouraging and supportive. He’s an amazing human being.”

Evans co-produced her debut album, Another Mind, with Jamal, who has also taken a personal interest in Hiromi’s artistic development. “She is nothing short of amazing,” says Jamal. “Her music, together with her overwhelming charm and spirit, causes her to soar to unimaginable musical heights.” Another Mind was a critical success in North America and in her native Japan, where the album shipped gold (100,000 units) and received the Recording Industry Association of Japan’s (RIAJ) Jazz Album of the Year Award. Hiromi’s astonishing debut was but a forecast of the shape of jazz to come.

Her 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’s Readers Poll for her 2006 release, Spiral. Hiromi’s winning streak continued with the release of Time Control in 2007 and Beyond Standard in 2008. Both releases featured Sonicbloom: her hand-picked group that included guitarist Dave “Fuze” Fiuczynski, bassist Tony Grey and drummer Martin Valihora.

Hiromi achieved a number of milestones in 2009.  She recorded with pianist Chick Corea – who she met in Japan when she was seventeen on Duet, a two-disc live recording of their transcendent, transgenerational and transcultural duo concert in Tokyo. She also appeared on bassist Stanley Clarke’s Heads Up International release, Jazz in the Garden, which also featured former Chick Corea bandmate, drummer Lenny White. 

In June of that same year, Hiromi simultaneously released two concert DVDs, both recorded in Tokyo: Hiromi Live in Concert (recorded in December 2005) and Hiromi’s Sonicbloom Live in Concert (recorded in December 2007). The former features the rhythm section of Grey and Valihora, while the latter includes Fiuczynski’s incendiary fretwork. 

In 2010, Hiromi released Place to Be, an impressive and intimate solo piano session; her evocative aural travelogue of the many places and spaces she visited around the world. “I wanted to record the sound of my twenties for archival purposes,” she says. “I felt like the people whom I met on the road during my twenties really helped me develop and mature as a musician and as a person. So in addition to making a record that represented all of these places that have inspired my music, I also wanted it to be a thank-you to those people.”

She followed up Place to Bewith a DVD, Hiromi Solo Live at Blue Note New York. Recorded on August 20 and 21, 2010, at the Blue Note in New York City, the video includes 11 originals and a special bonus feature with interview clips and performance footage from some of Hiromi’s favorite cities around the world.

On her 2011 album, Voice, Hiromi’s goal was to capture people’s “inner voices” to create what she called a “three-dimensional sound.” On that album, she assembled a trio that included herself and two veteran players: contrabass guitarist Anthony Jackson and drummer Simon Phillips. While Hiromi had played with Jackson prior to recordingVoice, she had never recorded an entire album with either him or Phillips, the latter who had been recommended to her by legendary bassist Stanley Clarke, a mutual acquaintance.

Also in 2011, The Stanley Clarke Band album, featuring Hiromi, won the GRAMMY®Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. While on the road, Hiromi started writing music for her follow-up, Move, released in 2013. That same year, she had several impressive placements in DownBeat magazine’s 61st Annual International Critics Poll, in the Jazz Artist, Piano, Keyboard and Rising Star: Piano categories.  In 2013, she performed at George Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival and also performed there for the festival’s sixtieth anniversary in 2014.

Alive, released in 2014, heralded the return of The Trio Project, featuring Phillips’ powerful, yet poetic percussion and Jackson’s flowing, glow-in-the-dark basslines beautifully buoying and supporting Hiromi’s ingenious and impassioned improvisations. Her evocative and expansive compositions evoke the myriad moods and mysteries of life and reveal the soulful, syncopated simpatico of her thrilling threesome. Her tenth CD, Spark, also featured the trio, this time igniting her most narratively sweeping and emotionally overflowing set of music to date. No wonder DownBeat magazine proclaimed the terrific triad as “one of the most exciting groups working in any genre today.”

In 2017, Live in Montreal found her veering off in yet another new direction, exploring a wholly unique sonic palette in collaboration with the Colombian harp virtuoso Edmar Castaneda (Paquito D’Rivera, Wynton Marsalis).

Spectrum is the latest chapter in Hiromi’s ever-evolving musical life. “I’m hungry to learn,” she told DownBeat magazine, “so I’ll always keep my big ears open fully, ready to learn every single minute that I play.”

Hailing from Los Angeles, Marlon Martinez is a young virtuoso bassist and composer emerging at the center of the resurgent Los Angeles jazz scene. He has demonstrated his virtuosity while touring with a wide range of artists, from rock icon Stewart Copeland to classical trailblazers Quatuor Ebène. Marlon is the protégé of mentor Stanley Clarke and studied with legendary jazz bassist Ron Carter in New York City. He is the Artistic Director, composer and bassist of his big band, Marlonius Jazz Orchestra. Marlon is a winner of Colburn School’s 2020 New Venture Competition and was selected as an artist-in-residence for the inaugural Amplify Series at the Colburn School in 2022.

Marlon received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees on a full scholarship at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, as a classical bass student of Leigh Mesh and Peter Lloyd from 2009-2015. An avid orchestral musician, Marlon has performed for renowned classical conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, John Adams, and the late Sir Neville Marriner. In 2010 and 2011, Marlon was selected to join the highly acclaimed Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland. During his membership, he performed under the baton of Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev and Neeme Järvi among others. He performed with international classical soloists such as Mischa Maisky, Yuja Wang, and Deborah Voigt. Marlon is a member of Wild Up, and he has performed with the San Diego Symphony, the Martha Graham Dance Academy, Ojai Festival Orchestra, and is a substitute bassist for the New West Symphony. 

As a jazz performer, Marlon played for Burt Bacharach at the San Diego Symphony Summer Pops in 2008, and with the late Ellis Marsalis at Snug Harbor in 2017. In 2019 he played with Ravi Coltrane and Gerry Gibbs for the album release of Thrasher People: Our People, and with Nicholas Payton and the Kojo Odu Roney Experience at Blue Note New York. Marlon performs in jazz ensembles and David Bowie tributes with Bowie veteran Mike Garson. Marlon was a featured soloist at the world premiere of Garson's Symphonic Suite for Healing at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in 2013. As a studio musician in Los Angeles, Marlon has recorded for artists such as Seth MacFarlane, Michael Giacchino, Justin Hurwitz, and Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox. As a faculty member at the Centrum 2023 jazz workshop in Port Townsend, Marlon performed with many artists including John Clayton, Terrell Stafford, Tia Fuller, Jeff Hamilton, Rene Marie and Wycliffe Gordon. 

Marlon is the bassist for Stewart Copeland and Jon Kimura Parker’s epic collaboration Off The Score. Notable tour appearances include the 2015 21C Music Festival with Off The Score, the 2016 Gstaad Menuhin Festival and Academy with Quatuor Ebène and Stacey Kent, the premiere of his composition Jazz Impressions for String Orchestra, No. 1 at the 2016 Festival du Haut Limousin, and Don't Box Me In: An Intimate Evening with Stewart Copeland at Long Beach Opera in 2018. 

Dedicated to teaching about jazz composer Billy Strayhorn, Marlon created Ever Up And Onward: A Tribute To Billy Strayhorn in 2022, an eight episode video series presented by Colburn School that explores the life, legacy and music of Billy Strayhorn. As a Colburn Amplify Series artist-in-residence, Marlon recorded an album, reviving known and lesser known Strayhorn compositions with Marlonius Jazz Orchestra. The album, Marlonius | Strayhorn, will be released in 2023 and the single "All Day Long '' is now available. Marlon was a guest speaker at the Library Of Congress for the 2023 Strayhorn: Known and Unknown discussion panel. At Centrum 2023, Marlon presented a lecture on Billy Strayhorn’s orchestration techniques. Marlon's Strayhorn projects are made possible by the continuous support of Billy Strayhorn Songs, Inc. and the Billy Strayhorn Foundation.

Marlon's 2017 debut album Yours Truly demonstrates his versatility as a bassist and composer. His original compositions are dynamic and soulful, with a fresh juxtaposition of tradition and originality. Marlon highlights Stewart Copeland and Judd Miller on his rock-fusion track "HD," and features contemporary jazz artists Isaac Wilson, Jacob Scesney, Cam Johnson and Aaron Blumenthal. Yours Truly is available on all streaming and downloadable platforms.

Marlonius Jazz Orchestra propels the 20th century big band tradition into 21st century culture. Marlonius Jazz Orchestra highlights many of Los Angeles' finest millennial jazz artists by performing new compositions by Marlon Martinez, and revitalizing the music of jazz legend Billy Strayhorn. Right from its maiden voyage in 2016, Marlonius Jazz Orchestra has sold out concerts across the Greater Los Angeles Area, featuring artists such as Mike Garson, Josie James, Bernard Fowler, Frieda Lee, and Barbara Morrison. Marlonius Jazz Orchestra is becoming an attractive force in the Los Angeles music scene and beyond. The BroadStage performance will feature special guest singer and songwriter Olivia Kuper Harris.