No.95


Stanly Clark "School Days" Epic(EK 36975)`76 - U.S.A.

David Sancious(key), Raymond Gomez(g), Gerry Brown(drs), Steve Gadd(drs), John Mclaughlin(g), George Duke(kb), etc. 
    * N.Y. Type    - L.A. Type    - Latin Type   - Nac/Aor Type 
    - Black Contemperary   Type   - Euro. Type   - Afro Type
    - Jazz Type    - Blues Type   * Rock  Type   * S.Clark  Type
In my school days, I would listened this album so many times that I made the disk scratched. Although he was not my type of bass player, this album is so wonderful that cannot be counted out from this Best 100 series. My best three bass players are,
No1 splendid technician of fretless bess Jaco Pastorius,
No2 slap bass player Larry Graham,
and then this super swift player Stanly Clark comes No3.
All these three great bass players can be categoriesed as technician type. In the last half of 70's, technician type of bass players collected listeners' attention than before and they were getting popular. Taking an objective view of this album, I suppose this album made him a star. At the first time he had appeared from RTF, only limited fusion/jazz fans could appreciate him. But later on, his "School Days" in this album and "Rock'n Roll Jelly"(title uncertain), cooperation album with J.Beck made him popular among rock fans and introduced him to outer world of fusion/jazz. Back to this album, "School Days" is very famous for slapping 2nd string but it's not all. This album contains ECM flavor composition in which he plays the piccolo bass, and it tells us that he was from jazz. Although this is the best hit album among those big three bass players, "School Days" has been progressing so much that we can listen more sophisticated play on his live performance. ☆--------------＋--------------☆ 　　　　　　 Slow 　　　　　　　　●　　　　　　 Speedy 　　　　　　　　　Light 　　　　　　●　　　　　　　　 Heavy 　　　　　　　 Mellow 　　　　　　　●　　　　　　　 Hard 　　　　　　　 Lyrical 　　　　　　●　　　　　　　　 Cool 　　　　　 Melodious 　　　　●　　　　　　　　　　 Out of melody/code 　　　　　Cnservative 　　　　　　　●　　　　　　　 Progressive/Tricky 　　　　 　 Ensemble 　　　　　　 　●　　　　　　 Inter Play
*This album was epoch making in those era.(Aswan)

SlowSpeedy
LightHeavy
MellowHard
LyricalCool
MelodiousOut of melody/code
ConservativeProgresseve/Tricky
EnsembleInterplay

Translated by Toshitake Ozutsumi