I Wanna Play for You

Stanley Clarke

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8
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I Wanna Play for You Review

by Richard S. Ginell

Stanley Clarke stretches his muscles and comes up with a mostly impressive, polystylistic, star-studded double album (now on one CD) that gravitates ever closer to the R&B mainstream. Clarke's writing remains strong and his tastes remain unpredictable, veering into rock, electronic music, acoustic jazz, even reggae in tandem with British rocker Jeff Beck. Clarke's excursion into disco, "Just a Feeling," is surprisingly and infectiously successful, thanks to a good bridge and George Duke's galvanizingly funky work on the Yamaha electric grand piano (his finest moment with Clarke by far). The brief "Blues for Mingus," a wry salute from one master bassist to another (Mingus died about six months before this album's release), is a cool acoustic breather for piano trio, and the eloquent Stan Getz can be detected, though nearly buried under the garish vocals and rock-style mix, on "The Streets of Philadelphia." Yet even the talented Clarke in full creative flower couldn't quite fill a double set with new material, so he has a tendency to reprise some of his old memorable riffs a lot, and there are several energetic snapshots of his live band in action. In its zeal to get this two-LP set onto one disc, Epic deleted three of the original 15 tracks -- including at least one gem, the sizzling hard rocker "All About" -- and scrambled the order of the remaining tunes. Which is dumb, because the missing tracks only take up a bit less than 12 minutes of playing time, not enough to overload a 65-minute disc. Hunt for the double-LP version if you can still play vinyl.

Track Listing

	Title/Composer	Performer	Time	Stream
1	I Wanna Play for You Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	06:15	Spotify Amazon
2	Just a Feeling Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	06:02	Spotify Amazon
3	The Streets of Philadelphia Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	05:50	Spotify Amazon
4	Together Again Mike Garson	Stanley Clarke	05:42	Spotify Amazon
5	Blues for Mingus Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	02:18	Spotify Amazon
6	Strange Weather Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	01:47	Spotify Amazon
7	Quiet Afternoon Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	08:59	Spotify Amazon
8	Rock & Roll Jelly Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	02:34	Spotify Amazon
9	Jamaican Boy Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	03:26	Spotify Amazon
10	My Greatest Hits Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	05:44	Spotify Amazon
11	School Days Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	08:08
12	Hot Fun/Closing Stanley Clarke	Stanley Clarke	07:47	Spotify Amazon