As bass guitars go, the Alembic is something of a rarity. So it’s kinda weird that three of my four all-time favorite electric bassists play these distinctive looking and sounding handcrafted instruments.

The Alembic players would be Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna fame, Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead and jazz virtuoso Stanley Clarke. (The late Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report is the fourth favorite; he played a Fender Jazz.)

In my book, Ron Carter and Charles Mingus were pretty much the bass standard bearers going into the 1970s when jazz fusion hit the jazz world like a comet from outer space. To my mind, that explosion began with Miles Davis‘s “Bitches Brew” double LP (1970), and its electrified funk-infused improvisations rocked the traditional jazz world to its core.

I first saw Stanley Clarke in the mid-1970s. At age 24 he seemed to be more of an enthusiastic kid than a seasoned pro, although he played like one. He was gigging with Chick Corea‘s original electric Return to Forever jazz fusion quintet.

Meanwhile, Pastorius was setting the jazz world further on fire with his revolutionary fretless bass playing — and like Clarke using the bass like a lead guitar, if you will, and not in its customary place as a rhythm instrument. Pastorius was soon to join Weather Report, for my ducats the best jazz fusion ensemble ever.

Not that it matters. Comparing groups and musicians can be silly. But I did think that Stanley was Jaco’s equal back then and still do today.

Pastorius, like Clarke, was born in 1951, but never saw his 40 birthday, primarily because of drugs wrapped in emotional issues. (Or was it the other way around?)

Clarke is now 56. And still playing like that enthusiastic kid, only even better.

On Saturday night, Clarke headlined the closing night of the 19th Annual DuPont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival under the stars in Rodney Square in my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

Clarke’s quartet repeatedly brought the packed house of 5,000-plus out of their lawn chairs with the kind of inspired playing reminiscent of the heyday of jazz fusion but suffused — and sometimes supercharged — with the years of experienced he has gained playing with an eclectic range of performers from George Duke to Stewart Copeland to Jean-Luc Ponty.

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