Stanley Clarke and Ron Carter

Listeners can expect to hear a lot of the “right notes” as two of the true legends of low-end meet for these momentous evenings of duets over four nights. Between them, 2022 NEA Jazz Master Stanley Clarke and 1998 NEA Jazz Master Ron Carter have defined and redefined the bass’s role in modern jazz, from the hard bop innovations of the early 1960s to the jazz-fusion revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. 

The four-time GRAMMY winning Clarke achieved worldwide fame as a pioneer of jazz fusion with Chick Corea and Return to Forever, and his subsequent career as a bandleader. The Philadelphia native has recorded 24 albums as a leader, leading a procession of masterful bands, and collaborating with George Duke, McCoy Tyner, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, Al Di Meola, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Stewart Copeland, and dozens more. 

Ron Carter is, quite simply, the face of jazz bass. A towering figure, he was already a creative force on the roiling early ‘60s scene when he joined Miles Davis in 1962, the first piece of what became the trumpeter’s second great quintet.  

With more than 2,300 albums to his credit, including over 60 as a leader, "The Maestro” holds the Guinness World Record as jazz’s most recorded bassist.  

Clarke and Carter collaborated in a trio with guitarist Russell Malone as part of the recent PBS documentary on Carter’s life, Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes.