“I got rid of a lot of my electric basses – at one point I had over 100!” After five decades at the low-end, Stanley Clarke decided to part ways with his astonishing bass collection

Every now and then, whether through fluke or sheer good fortune, life throws up some great pairings. James Jamerson and his P-Bass, Jack Bruce and his Gibson EB-3, McCartney and his Hofner 500/1, and of course, Jaco and his fretless Fender Jazz. In such a list, you’d have to include Stanley Clarke and his Alembic.

Introduced in 1988, his signature model has a 30.75-inch scale with 24 frets and an ebony fingerboard, plus gold machineheads and an active circuit supplied by Ron Wickersham.

“I’ve been playing Alembic all my life,” Clarke told Bass Player. “But I’ve had other basses. I actually got rid of a lot of my electric basses; at one point I had over 100 of them! I thought ‘Why do I need all these? They’re just collecting dust,’ so I gave some to friends, and got rid of others, and I’m planning to get rid of even more.

“I also have many, many amplification systems, and I don’t know what to do with that stuff. Warwick sent all these cabinets over, and I was so happy, because I loved them – but you know what, I travel a lot, so the only chance I ever have to use them is when I’m in Los Angeles.”

Prior to getting his hands on his first Alembic, Clarke could often be seen performing with a Gibson hollowbody. In stark contrast to the Alembic, the Gibson’s tone was somewhat ill-defined – OK for rock, but not really suited to the new jazz fusion sounds Clarke and his fellow musicians were creating.

(Image credit: Getty Images)“My first bass was a horrible-sounding Gibson. It looked like a Chet Atkins guitar. Rick Turner from Alembic came to a gig I was playing and said, ‘You play really good, but your sound is awful!’ I got mad at him, but he said ‘I have a bass for you’. I played it and bought it from him that night.

“I don’t know if it was a prototype or what, but I said, ‘Man, you’re not getting this bass back!’ Suddenly I could play anything that I heard in my head.”

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To cement the relationship, Clarke’s self-titled 1974 album featured a cover shot with his new bass, and before long there was a Stanley Clarke Signature model.

“The thing that the Alembic people did for me was put a boost in there. There’s a little switch that they put in, real close to the five-pin input. It gives it a quick boost of 5dB, I think. Other than that, it’s pretty standard.”

Clarke had already demonstrated his double bass chops with Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, but with the advent of his custom-built Alembic, he now had a distinctive tone on bass guitar.

School Days was Clarke’s third solo album and it was the one on which his flamboyant bass technique really caught the world’s imagination. Clarke’s Carl Thompson piccolo bass also makes an appearance on three tracks.

Despite his long association with Alembic, in 1980 Clarke teamed up with instrument designer Tom Lieber to make the Spellbinder Bass, and continued in the 2000s with the SB II, the Mando Piccolo Bass, and other unique designs.

“Our Spellcaster bass looks like a Fender Stratocaster. We actually took it to Fender and they loved it. It has a reverse headstock, like a Jimi Hendrix bass, which gives the E string a longer scale by the time it gets to the tuning peg. When you pull it, it’s a little looser, and the sound is different. It’s a very cool bass.”

Asked what else is in his signal chain, Clarke explains: “I’ve been using EBS pedals for a long time, and I love them. They’re really roadworthy and they sound great. These guys are a real class A company, they’ve been taking care of me for years.”

(Image credit: Oneonta Guitar)When it comes to amplification, Clarke’s hooked up with venerable amp-makers, Ampeg.

“One of the great things about Ampeg is that they’re everywhere. We play a lot of small venues with backline, and everybody has Ampeg. I like their cabs because they have a warmer, fatter sound – and the Alembic bass likes that.”