George Duke and Stanley Clarke

[DJ Bebop]

 

[Les Fret]

Love both George and Stanley but the two albums they made together are a bit too smooth and cliché for me, although they have a few nice tuned like Wild Dogs.

 

[OnTheOneBaby]

Very many thanks for Fontella Bass and Rescue Me.

 

[farace]

Slightly off topic, but as far as I know, the two seasons of Night Music have never been collected and released for home viewing on VHS or DVD; I imagine that clearing all the music and performance rights must be a nightmare. I’ve managed through careful searching to find almost all the episodes on YouTube and download them to a thumb drive, and we watch them regularly. They’re an absolute treasure, especially the episodes curated by Hal Willner, who could throw together very different performers you’d never think of, and it would work amazingly well; for the final performance they’d put them all on stage at once. One of our favorite performances had Leonard Cohen, Sonny Rollins, members of Was/Not Was, Robben Ford, and others all doing Cohen’s “Who By Fire.” (One of the oddest collaborations, though, has to be throwing the Residents and Conway Twitty together.)

 

[FilterFunk]

These are two of my favorite George Duke tracks - both are heavily influenced by P-Funk in general and Bootsy Collins in particular.

"I Am For Real" and "Dukey Stick":

The flip side of the "I Am For Real" single is the slow song "Say That You Will."

At 0.54 and 1:43 the song becomes very EWF-like. To be clear, I'm not mentioning the influences to say that George Duke was ripping anybody off; I think it shows Duke's ability to brilliantly and seamlessly incorporate others' styles into his own music. His adaptability is impressive.

 

[Bob_Ross]

the two seasons of Night Music ...[snip]... They’re an absolute treasure, especially the episodes curated by Hal Willner, who could throw together very different performers you’d never think of, and it would work amazingly well

Pretty sure Wilner was also responsible for the Night Music episode I remember most fondly: Todd Rundgren, Taj Mahal, and Katherine Gray singing an exerpt from Gilbert & Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore" in full costume...Pat Metheny was guesting with the band, and he/they were also in period-correct sailor costumes. Freakin' hysterical!

When I was a freshman in college my roommate had that Cobham-Duke Band live album, and I thought it was kinda second-rate fusion, a bit too cheesey/clichéd compared to earlier efforts that all members were associated with. But just recently I watched the concert that album was taken from (it's on youtube) and I guess my opinion of it has become a bit more charitible, especially because of Alphonso's playing on the pieces that weren't included on the album (I think...or maybe I just forgot about them in the ~45 years since I was a college freshman?)

I think I listened to the original Clarke-Duke Project album once when it first came out. But some of my favorite George Duke playing is the stuff he did on Stanley's Journey To Love album. Incredibly telepathic playing!

I was lucky enough to see Duke live with Frank Zappa in 1974. What a monster. mind=blown

 

[Dr. Cheese]

George Duke and Stanley Clarke were sort of like a good marriage in that they sort of completed each other. I got to meet them after a show and George Duke was one of the most genuinely nice people I ever met. Stanley Clarke was definitely more aloof and restrained. Musically, Duke was much more naturally good at Pop although he had chops for days too.

George Duke was a very successful, but it still seems that he did not get all the attention he deserved. Oh well, those of us who know, know just how great he was!