07.01.2010 Stanley Clarke Band / Andy Milne's Dapp Theory

The Vancouver Jazz festival is usually pretty good about bringing in pretty decent jazz acts. This year their crowning grab was Return to Forever bassist and bass innovator Stanley Clarke. Extra special was the addition of the phenomenal Hiromi Uehara in the piano chair.

Unfortunately, I was unable to catch the majority of Andy Milne's set. The beat poetry spliced into the music was a little new to me and at times the drummer seemed to overplay his parts, but overall from what I heard they were quite good.

I should actually mention that this was the first time that I attended a show at the Centre for Performing Arts (former the Ford Centre I think). The acoustics are nice and the decor in the atrium was quite classy. Stanley's band consisted of him, Hiromi on piano, Ruslan Sirota on synth, and Ronald Bruner Jr. on drums. The remarkable thing was despite the age of Stanley, the rest of the band were in their late 20s / earyl 30s. Much like someone else alluded to, it was very much like a great jazz legend passing the torch to a new generation of musicians.

Stanley started his set with on the electric bass playing a solo piece. This was actually the only time he played his electric. The rest of the set he played his upright acoustic. The set was comprised of half songs from the 2 albums Stanley did with Hiromi and the other from his previous projects. And true to jazz form, some wonderful solos and improvisations. From my experience last year, I was already well aware of how great of a pianist Hiromi was. What really blew my mind was how good Ronald Bruner Jr. was. Seeing mostly rock and indie shows, it was pretty eye opening how much he depth he added to the band. Realistically, anyone of the members in the band could've carried the show.

$75/60