Clarence Seay is a jazz bassist and composer.

He has been an acoustic bassist with the Wallace Roney

Wallace Roney

Wallace Roney is an American hard bop and post-bop trumpeter.Roney took lessons from Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie and studied with Miles Davis from 1985 until the latter's death in 1991...

 Quintet for over 15 years. Seay, also known as “Big C”, is a disciple of the Paul Chambers

Paul Chambers

Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. was a jazz bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the length and breadth of his work in this short period but also his impeccable time, intonation, and virtuosic...

 school of jazz bass playing which features a style of walking harmonically inventive bass lines in a robust manner by positioning strings relatively high from the fingerboard - a practice mostly abandoned by modern bass players because of its physical difficulty.

In addition to Roney, Seay has recorded and/or toured domestically and internationally with several renowned jazz artists and groups including Art Blakey

Art Blakey

Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....

 and the Jazz Messengers, Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...

, Billy Harper

Billy Harper

Billy Harper is a Jazz saxophonist, "one of a generation of Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists" with a distinctively stern, hard-as-nails sound on his instrument.-Biography:...

, Chico Freeman

Chico Freeman

Chico Freeman is a modern jazz tenor saxophonist and trumpeter and son of jazz saxophonist Von Freeman...

, Lou Donaldson

Lou Donaldson

Lou Donaldson is a jazz alto saxophonist. He was born in Badin, North Carolina. He is best known for his soulful, bluesy approach to playing the alto saxophone, although in his formative years he was, as many were of the bebop era, heavily influenced by Charlie Parker.His first recordings were...

 and the Smithsonian Jazz Works Orchestra.

Seay attended Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC, with Wallace Roney

Wallace Roney

Wallace Roney is an American hard bop and post-bop trumpeter.Roney took lessons from Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie and studied with Miles Davis from 1985 until the latter's death in 1991...

 and Gregory Charles Royal

Gregory Charles Royal

Gregory Charles Royal is an American musician, composer, author, and a judge on America's Hot Musician, as well as a plaintiff in a 2009 lawsuit against Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.- Biography :...

 in the 1970s and attended Howard University with them and pianist Geri Allen

Geri Allen

Geri Allen is an American composer/pianist educator jazz pianist, raised in Detroit, Michigan, and educated in the Detroit Public Schools. Allen has worked with many of the greats of modern music, including Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Ravi Coltrane, Tony Williams, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette,...

in the 1980s. Seay was an Adjunct Professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond for over 10 years in the 1980s and 90s.

He was commissioned by the United States Post Office to compose and perform on their Album Commemorating America’s Celebration of Jazz.

Discography

Wallace Roney Quintet

• Village

Billy Harper

• Soul of an Angel
• If Our Heart Could Only See
• Destiny Is Yours

Cindy Blackman

• Telepathy
• Arcane

Wynton Marsalis

• God Rest Ye Merry Jazzmen

Gregory Charles Royal (with Geri Allen)

• Dream Come True