Can't remember if I've ever told this story here, but since I alluded to it in the "Favorite Bass Manufacturers" thread, I'll spill it (again).
One of my Alembic basses has some "legacy" and what I think is a pretty cool back-story. It used to belong to Stanley Clarke. I vividly recall him playing it less than 5 feet away from me at a concert that was one of my first dates with my wife.
I've always liked Alembic basses and I'm a long time fan of Stanley Clarke. Believe it or not, I arrived at those two points from different places. I saw Lequient Jobe play an Alembic at a Rose Royce concert (Car Wash) and fell in love with the look and sound. I discovered Stanley Clarke a little later in life. Stanley is the quintessential Alembic player.
Anyway, one day in 1992, I heard on the radio that tickets for the Stanley Clarke / George Duke concert at the Fox Theatre in Detroit were going on sale at 10:00. It was 9:40 am and I had just driven past the Fox. I turned around, stood in line, and got 2nd row tickets. Fast forward to the concert. We're sitting in the second row. Much of the front row is empty. Stanley is playing a bass much different than the usual small body Alembic he normally plays. Looked more like the large bodies that Lequient Jobe, Louis Johnson, and Kool Bell played. As he started into a solo, Stanley stood on one of the front row seats in front of me and Melanie and just went totally off, the way that only Stanley can.
Fast forward to 2000. I found out through the grapevine that Stanley was setting up an internet site to auction off ALL of his music gear. It was a requirement in settling his divorce. I looked at the site and saw the bass that he played that night. I also saw the "School Days" Brown Bass. That one was listed at $20K, so definitely off my shopping list. But the bass from our concert was listed at $5,500. I contacted his engineer, who was running the auction for him, and made him an offer (this was before the actual open of the auction) and Stanley accepted. So now I've owned that bass for 9 years, and many more to come.
In the picture below, the bottom two pictures are the bass I'm talking about. The one picture is from a photo shoot where Stanley was holding the bass. The pictures on top are various Alembics I've owned over time. The ones in the top left are the type that Stanley normally plays. The one on the right is the other Alembic I still own and use as my primary instrument. It arrived about two days after Stanley's bass arrived. That was a pretty good week around the Martin residence.
Anybody else have an instrument with a cool story?
