Stanley Clarke, talking about the tune “Larry Has Traveled 11 Miles and Waited a Lifetime for the Return of Vishnu’s Report” on his new album, The Stanley Clarke Band:
“If you study the title, it has little fragments of the names of five or six really influential jazz-rock fusion bands, like Larry Coryell’s Eleventh House, Miles Davis of course, Mahavishnu Orchestra, the Tony Williams Lifetime, Return to Forever, and Weather Report,” he explains. “And that tune, if you listen to it really carefully, you’ll hear elements of all those bands—although to me it sounds more like Weather Report than anybody.
“Even though I was in Return to Forever, and I love Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles and all that stuff, to me the most creative out of all those bands was Weather Report,” he adds. “Don’t tell Chick I said that!”
Really? Corea wouldn’t be bothered by this well-deserved nod to the late Joe Zawinul, would he?
“Ah,” says Clarke, laughing, “you don’t know Chick like I know him!”