The
Clarke/Duke Project is just one of the many legendary fusion bands performing at North Sea Jazz. Stanley Clarke, the Paganini of the bass, and keyboard wizard George Duke co-led one of the most celebrated fusion bands of the eighties. Both Clarke and Duke seemed to be destined for a shining career in jazz, but both opted for a career in the new fusion genre. Clarke first worked with jazz greats like Dexter Gordon and Pharoah Sanders before he, via Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, settled in fusion pur sang. As the regular pianist of the New York jazz club The Half Note Duke accompanied legendary trumpeters as Kenny Dorham and Dizzy Gillespie, but opted after a brilliant spell in Frank Zappa’s bands for a career as a producer in the more popular genres. At the beginning of the eighties both celebrities found each other in a project that would yield three studio-albums, one live-CD and even a top 40 hit (
Sweet Baby). The reunion of these two instrumentalists is bound to produce a big bang.
