Heads Up
2007
The Toys Of Men
About This Album
It's unfortunate that it took the sad state of international political affairs of the early 21st century to lure Stanley Clarke back to the intense brand of jazz bass playing he pioneered with Return to Forever in the 1970s, but that's what The Toys of Men is all about. Clarke has spent much of the last couple of decades outside of the realm of jazz, scoring films and television programs, but he has said that his disdain for the very idea of war, and specifically the constant state of war in the Middle East, inspired him to put together a fired-up band and make an antiwar statement with this album. Whether he accomplishes that goal is debatable: only one track here, "The Opening of the Gates," contains a sung vocal, by Esperanza Spalding, and the only other voice heard on the recording is the spoken word of Clarke himself. But whether or not instruments can by themselves make the point that violence and destruction do not exactly offer much hope for the future, the music created here is easily Clarke's most dynamic and potent in a long, long time. The set opens with a six-part suite that also lends its name, "The Toys of Men," to the album itself. Those toys, Clarke has said, are weapons, and he disdains mankind's insistence on using them to kill one another.
Track List (try tracks 1,2 and 9)

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