A sonic exploration and tonal analysis of contemporary creative music in a myriad of improvisational/composed settings, textures, and expressions.
Welcome to Sound Projections
I'm your host Kofi Natambu. This online magazine features the very best in contemporary creative music in this creative timezone NOW (the one we're living in) as well as that of the historical past. The purpose is to openly explore, examine, investigate, reflect on, studiously critique, and take opulent pleasure in the sonic and aural dimensions of human experience known and identified to us as MUSIC. I'm also interested in critically examining the wide range of ideas and opinions that govern our commodified notions of the production, consumption, marketing, and commercial exchange of organized sound(s) which largely define and thereby (over)determine our present relationships to music in the general political economy and culture.
Thus this magazine will strive to critically question and go beyond the conventional imposed notions
and categories of what constitutes the generic and stylistic definitions of ‘Jazz’, ‘classical music’, ‘Blues.’
'Rhythm and Blues’, ‘Rock and Roll’, ‘Pop’, ‘Funk’, ‘Hip Hop’, etc. in order to search for what individual
artists and ensembles do cretively to challenge and transform our ingrained ideas and attitudes of what
music is and could be.
So please join me in this ongoing visceral, investigative, and cerebral quest to explore, enjoy, and pay
homage to the endlessly creative and uniquely magisterial dimensions of MUSIC in all of its guises and expressive identities.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Clark Terry (1920-2015): Legendary, iconic, and innovative musician, composer, arranger, ensemble leader, producer, and teacher
Possessor of the happiest sound in jazz, flügelhornist Clark Terry always played music that was exuberant, swinging, and fun. A brilliant (and very distinctive) soloist, Terry
gained fame for his "Mumbles" vocals (which started as a satire of the
less intelligible ancient blues singers) and was also an enthusiastic
educator. He gained early experience playing trumpet in the viable St.
Louis jazz scene of the early '40s (where he was an inspiration for Miles Davis) and, after performing in a Navy band during World War II, he gained a strong reputation playing with the big band of Charlie Barnet (1947-1948), the orchestra and small groups of Count Basie (1948-1951), and particularly with Duke Ellington (1951-1959). Terry, a versatile swing/bop soloist who started specializing on flügelhorn in the mid-'50s, had many features with Ellington (including "Perdido"), and started leading his own record dates during that era. He visited Europe with Harold Arlen's unsuccessful Free & Easy show of 1959-1960 as part of Quincy Jones' Orchestra, and then joined the staff of NBC where he was a regular member of the Tonight Show Orchestra. He recorded regularly in the '60s, including a classic set with the Oscar Peterson Trio and several dates with the quintet he co-led with valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer. Throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s, Terry
remained a major force, recording and performing in a wide variety of
settings, including as the head of his short-lived big band in the
mid-'70s, with all-star groups for Pablo, and as a guest artist who
provided happiness in every note he played. Terry died on February 21, 2015, at age 94, after an extended battle with diabetes.
Clark Terry's career in jazz spans more than
sixty years. He is a world-class trumpeter, flugelhornist, educator, and
NEA Jazz Master. He performed for seven U.S. Presidents, and was a Jazz
Ambassador for State Department tours in the Middle East and Africa.
More than fifty jazz festivals in all seven continents still feature
him. He received a Grammy Award, two Grammy certificates, three Grammy
nominations, thirteen honorary doctorates, keys to cities, lifetime
achievements and halls of fame awards. He was knighted in Germany and is
the recipient of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Clark's star on
the Walk of Fame, and his Black World History Museum's life-sized wax
figure can both be visited in his hometown, St. Louis, Missouri. Clark
composed more than two hundred jazz songs, and his books include Let's
Talk Trumpet: From Legit to Jazz, Interpretation of the Jazz Language
and Clark Terry's System of Circular Breathing for Woodwind and Brass
Instruments. He recorded with The London Symphony Orchestra, The
Dutch Metropole Orchestra, The Duke Ellington Orchestra and The Chicago
Jazz Orchestra, at least thirty high school and college ensembles, his
own duos, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, and two big bands —
Clark Terry's Big Bad Band and Clark Terry's Young Titans of Jazz. His
career as both leader and sideman with more than three hundred
recordings demonstrates that he is one of the luminaries in jazz.
Clark's discography reads like a “Who's Who In Jazz,”
with personnel that includes great jazz artists such as Duke Ellington,
Count Basie, Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy
Gillespie, Dinah Washington, Ben Webster, Charlie Barnet, Doc
Severinsen, Ray Charles, Billy Strayhorn, Dexter Gordon, Thelonious
Monk, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims, Milt
Jackson, Bob Brookmeyer, Jon Faddis, and Dianne Reeves. “Clark
Terry,” writes Chuck Berg, “is one of contemporary music's great
innovators, and justly celebrated for his great technical virtuosity,
swinging lyricism, and impeccable good taste. Combining these with the
gifts of a great dramatist, Clark is a master storyteller whose
spellbinding musical 'tales' leave audiences thrilled and always
awaiting more.” In the 1940s, after serving in the Navy, Clark's
musical star rose rapidly with successful stints in the bands of George
Hudson, Charlie Barnet, Charlie Ventura, Eddie Vinson, and then in 1948 —
the great Count Basie. In addition to his outstanding musical
contribution to these bands, Mr. Terry exerted a positive influence on
musicians such as Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, both of whom credit
Clark as a formidable influence during the early stages of their
careers. In 1951 Clark was asked to join Maestro Duke Ellington's
renowned orchestra where he stayed for eight years as a featured
soloist. Following a tour with Harold Arlen's “Free and Easy” show
directed by Quincy Jones in 1960, Clark's international recognition
soared when he accepted an offer from the National Broadcasting Company
to become its first African American staff musician. Soon after, Clark
became a ten year television star as one of the spotlighted players in
the Tonight Show band where he scored a smash hit as a singer with his
irrepressible “Mumbles.” From the 70's through the 90's, Clark performed
at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, and Lincoln Center, toured with the
Newport Jazz All Stars and Jazz at the Philharmonic, and he was featured
with Skitch Henderson's New York Pops Orchestra. Since 2000, he hosts
Clark Terry Jazz Festivals on land and sea, and his own jazz camps. Prompted
early in his career by Dr. Billy Taylor, Clark and Milt Hinton bought
instruments for and gave instruction to young hopefuls which planted the
seed that became Jazz Mobile in Harlem. This venture tugged at Clark's
greatest love - involving youth in the perpetuation of Jazz. Between
global performances, Clark continues to share wholeheartedly his jazz
expertise and encourage students.
Clark Terry’s career in jazz spanned more than seventy years.
He was a world-class trumpeter, flugelhornist, educator, composer,
writer, trumpet/flugelhorn designer, teacher and NEA Jazz Master. He
performed for eight U.S. Presidents, and was a Jazz Ambassador for State
Department tours in the Middle East and Africa. More than fifty jazz
festivals featured him at sea and on land in all seven continents. Many
were named in his honor. He was one of the most recorded musicians in the history of jazz,
with more than nine-hundred recordings. Clark’s discography reads like a
“Who’s Who In Jazz,” with personnel that included greats such as Quincy
Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah
Washington, Ben Webster, Aretha Franklin, Charlie Barnet, Doc
Severinsen, Ray Charles, Billy Strayhorn, Dexter Gordon, Thelonious
Monk, Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan, Sarah Vaughan, Coleman Hawkins,
Zoot Sims, Milt Jackson, Bob Brookmeyer, and Dianne Reeves. Among his numerous recordings, he was featured with the Duke
Ellington Orchestra, Count Basie Orchestra, Dutch Metropole Orchestra,
Chicago Jazz Orchestra, Woody Herman Orchestra, Herbie Mann Orchestra,
Jimmy Heath Orchestra, Donald Byrd Orchestra, and many other large
ensembles – high school and college ensembles, his own duos, trios,
quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, and two big bands – Clark Terry’s
Big Bad Band and Clark Terry’s Young Titans of Jazz. His Grammy and NARAS Awards include: 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement
Award, NARAS President’s Merit Award, three Grammy nominations, and two
Grammy certificates.
His original compositions include more than two hundred jazz songs, and he co-authored books such as Let’s Talk Trumpet: From Legit to Jazz, Interpretation of the Jazz Language and Clark Terry’s System of Circular Breathing for Woodwind and Brass Instruments with Phil Rizzo. He won several awards for Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry,
which was published in 2011 by the University of California Press. A
quote from the Preface which was written by Quincy Jones says, “He has
always been loving and encouraging, and he has helped countless aspiring
musicians. Even at ninety-three years old, he’s still making dreams
come true for young hopefuls who want to learn from a true master. Still
making time to share his wisdom.” Writer Chuck Berg said, “Clark Terry is one of contemporary music’s
great innovators, and justly celebrated for his great technical
virtuosity, swinging lyricism, and impeccable good taste. Combining
these with the gifts of a great dramatist, Clark is a master storyteller
whose spellbinding musical ‘tales’ leave audiences thrilled and always
awaiting more.” After serving in the navy from 1942-1945 during the historic “Great
Lakes Experience,” Clark’s musical star rose rapidly with successful
stints in the bands of George Hudson, Charlie Barnet, Charlie Ventura,
Eddie Vinson, and then in 1948 – the great Count Basie. In addition to
his outstanding musical contribution to these bands, Mr. Terry exerted a
positive influence on musicians such as Miles Davis and Quincy Jones,
both of whom credit Clark as a formidable influence during the early
stages of their careers. In 1951 Clark was asked to join Maestro Duke Ellington’s renowned
orchestra where he stayed for eight years as a featured soloist. Following a tour in the “Free and Easy” musical in 1959 with music
director, Quincy Jones, Clark’s international recognition soared when he
broke the color barrier by accepting an offer in 1960 from the National
Broadcasting Company to become its first African American staff
musician. He was with NBC for twelve years as one of the spotlighted
musicians in the Tonight Show band. During that time, he scored a smash
hit as a singer with his irrepressible “Mumbles.” After his stint at NBC, between his performances and recording dates
at concerts, clubs, cruises and jazz festivals, Clark became more
dedicated to his greatest passion – jazz education. He organized a
Harlem youth band which became the seed for Jazz Mobile in New York
City. Billy Taylor then asked him to teach in educational institutions.
This motivated Clark to organize other youth bands and influence many
other jazz legends to teach with him at jazz camps, clinics and
festivals at colleges and universities, while still maintaining a hectic
performance and recording schedule for the next thirty years. On December 14, 2010, he celebrated his ninetieth birthday, and his
students continue to fly from Australia, Israel, Austria, Canada, the
United States, and many other locations to Clark’s home for jazz
lessons. Clark said, “Teaching jazz allows me to play a part in making
dreams come true for aspiring musicians.” To celebrate his contributions to jazz education, he was honored with
fifteen honorary doctorates, and three adjunct professorships. He also
received numerous awards from high schools, junior high schools and
elementary schools where he shared his knowledge of jazz. Among his many awards, he received honors from his hometown in St.
Louis, Missouri which included a Hall of Fame Award from Vashon High
School; a Walk of Fame Award and Star on Blueberry Hill in St. Louis,
and a life-sized wax figure and memorabilia display at the Griot Museum. Clark received dozens of other Hall and Wall of Fame Awards, Jazz
Master Awards, keys to cities, lifetime achievement awards (four were
presented to him in 2010), trophies, plaques and other prestigious
awards. The French and Austrian Governments presented him with their
esteemed Arts and Letters Awards, and he was knighted in Germany.
At William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, where Clark was an adjunct professor for many years, there is a Living Jazz Archive,
which features a collection of his memorabilia. Students are taught
about Clark’s impact in the history of jazz, and tours are scheduled for
visiting groups of students from public schools, from other colleges
and universities, and the general public. Details and pictures of this
extraordinary collection may be seen at livingjazzarchives.org. On the Movie DVD cover, “Magnificent! One of the year’s best pictures
period,” was a quote from Pete Hammond of Movieline, regarding the
exceptional movie-documentary Keep On Keepin’ On, which won twenty-one awards, and was honored as the Official Selection at thirty-seven international festivals. The synopsis on the Movie DVD case says, “Keep on Keepin’ On
depicts the remarkable story of 93-year-old jazz legend Clark Terry, a
living monument to The Golden Era of Jazz, having played in both the
Duke Ellington and Count Basie bands. He broke racial barriers on
American television and mentored the likes of Miles Davis and Quincy
Jones, but his most unlikely friendship is with Justin Kauflin, a
23-year-old blind piano prodigy. Justin, fighting a debilitating case of
stage fright, is invited to compete in a prestigious competition, while
Clark’s health takes a serious turn. The two face the toughest
challenges of their lives. The result is an intimate portrait of two
remarkable men – a student striving against all odds and a teacher who
continues to inspire through the power of music.” Director Alan Hicks, one of Clark’s students, won several awards for Keep On Keepin’ On,
which was released in 2014 by Radius-TWC and presented by Absolute Clay
Productions, Produced by Quincy Jones and Paula Dupre Pesmen, featuring
Clark Terry, Justin Kauflin, Gwen Terry, and Quincy Jones, music
composed by Justin Kauflin (one of Clark’s students) with additional
music by Dave Grusin, written by Alan Hicks and Davis Coombe, edited by
Davis Coombe, Director of Photography Adam Hart, co-produced by Karl
Kister and John Caulkins, executive produced by Adam Hart, Alan Hicks,
Adam Fell, David Skinner, Tom Gorai, and Jill Mazursky.
Compelling from cover to cover, this is the story of one of the most
recorded and beloved jazz trumpeters of all time. With unsparing honesty
and a superb eye for detail, Clark Terry, born in 1920, takes us from
his impoverished childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, where jazz could be
heard everywhere, to the smoke-filled small clubs and carnivals across
the Jim Crow South where he got his start, and on to worldwide acclaim.
Terry takes us behind the scenes of jazz history as he introduces scores
of legendary greats–Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie,
Dinah Washington, Doc Severinsen, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Billie
Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims, and Dianne Reeves,
among many others. Terry also reveals much about his own personal life,
his experiences with racism, how he helped break the color barrier in
1960 when he joined the Tonight Show band on NBC, and why–at ninety
years old–his students from around the world still call and visit him
for lessons. “Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry” is now also available as an
eBook for Kindle, Nook and other ‘ePub’-compatible e-readers.
100th Birthday Tributes
Tributes around the world will be taking place for Clark’s Centennial. Trumpet master and composer Clark Terry was born December 9, 1920 and died on February 22 in 2015. 2020 is his centennial year
Clark Terry at the Basie Centennial Ball at Columbia University in 2004.Credit...Steve Berman/The New York Times
by Peter Keepnews
Clark Terry,
one of the most popular and influential jazz trumpeters of his
generation and an enthusiastic advocate of jazz education, died on
Saturday in Pine Bluff, Ark. He was 94.
His death was announced by his wife, Gwen.
Mr.
Terry was acclaimed for his impeccable musicianship, loved for his
playful spirit and respected for his adaptability. Although his sound on
both trumpet and the rounder-toned fluegelhorn (which he helped
popularize as a jazz instrument) was highly personal and easily
identifiable, he managed to fit it snugly into a wide range of musical
contexts.
He
was one of the few musicians to have worked with the orchestras of both
Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He was for many years a constant
presence in New York’s recording studios — accompanying singers, sitting
in big-band trumpet sections, providing music for radio and television
commercials. He recorded with Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and other
leading jazz artists as well as his own groups.
He
was also one of the first black musicians to hold a staff position at a
television network and was for many years a mainstay of the “Tonight
Show” band, as well as one of the most high-profile proponents of
teaching jazz at the college level.
His
fellow musicians respected him as an inventive improviser with a
graceful and ebullient style, traces of which can be heard in the
playing of Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis and others. But many listeners
knew him best for the vocal numbers with which he peppered his
performances, a distinctively joyous brand of scat singing in which
noises as well as nonsense syllables took the place of words. It was an
off-the-cuff recording of one such song, released in 1964 under the name
“Mumbles,” that became his signature song.
The
high spirits of “Mumbles” were characteristic of Mr. Terry’s approach:
More than most jazz musicians of his generation, he was unafraid to fool
around. His sense of humor manifested itself in his onstage demeanor as
well as in his penchant for growls, slurs and speechlike effects.
Musicians
and critics saw beyond the clowning and recognized Mr. Terry’s
seriousness of purpose. Stanley Crouch wrote in The Village Voice in
1983 that Mr. Terry “stands as tall in the evolution of his horn as
anyone who has emerged since 1940.”
The
seventh of 11 children, Clark Terry was born into a poor St. Louis
family on Dec. 14, 1920. His mother, the former Mary Scott, died when he
was 6, and within a few years he was working odd jobs to help support
his family. He became interested in music when he heard the husband of
one of his sisters play tuba, and when he was 10 he built himself a
makeshift trumpet by attaching a funnel to a garden hose. Neighbors
later pitched in to buy him a trumpet from a pawnshop.
His
father, Clark Virgil Terry, a gas-company worker, discouraged his
interest in music, fearing that there was no future in it, but he
persisted. He played valve trombone and trumpet in his high school
orchestra and secured his first professional engagement, which paid 75
cents a night, with the help of his tuba-playing brother-in-law.
His
career got off to a bumpy start. After working with local bands like
Dollar Bill and His Small Change, he joined a traveling carnival and
found himself stranded in Hattiesburg, Miss., when it ran out of money.
In
1942 he joined the Navy and was assigned to the band at the Great Lakes
Training Station near Chicago. When the war ended, he returned to St.
Louis and joined a big band led by George Hudson.
“George
put the full weight of the band on me,” he told the jazz historian
Stanley Dance in 1961. “I played all the lead and all the trumpet solos,
rehearsed the band, suggested numbers, routines and everything.”
The
regimen paid off: When the Hudson band played at the Apollo Theater in
Harlem, Mr. Terry’s work was heard by some of the most important people
in jazz, and he soon had offers. He worked briefly with the bands of the
saxophonist Charlie Barnet and the blues singer and saxophonist Eddie
Vinson, among others, before joining Count Basie in 1948. Times were
getting tough for big bands in the postwar years, and Basie reduced his
group from 18 pieces to a septet in 1950, but he retained Mr. Terry. The next year, Duke Ellington called.
It
was the opportunity he had been waiting for. Working with Basie, he
would say many times, was a valuable experience, but it was like going
to prep school; his ultimate goal was to enroll in “the University of
Ellingtonia.”
Nonetheless,
after close to a decade with the Ellington band, he decided it was time
to move on. “I wanted to be more of a soloist,” he said, “but it was a
seniority thing. There were about 10 guys ahead of me.”
In
late 1959 he joined a big band being formed by Quincy Jones, who not
that many years earlier, as a youngster, had taken a few trumpet lessons
from him. The original plan was for the band to appear in a stage
musical called “Free and Easy,” with music by Harold Arlen. But the show
folded during a tryout in Paris, and Mr. Terry accepted an offer to
join NBC-TV’s in-house corps of musicians.
The first black musician to land such a job at NBC, he soon became familiar to late-night viewers as a member of the band on “The Tonight Show,”
led for most of his time there by Doc Severinsen. He also led a popular
quintet with the valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer and worked as a
sideman with the saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and others.
When
Johnny Carson began his popular “Stump the Band” feature on “The
Tonight Show,” in which members of the studio audience tried to come up
with song titles that no one in the band recognized, Mr. Terry would
often claim to know the song in question and then bluff his way through a
bluesy half-sung, half-mumbled number of his own spontaneous invention.
He
recorded one such joking vocal in 1964, as part of an album he cut with
the pianist Oscar Peterson’s trio. As he recalled it, the song,
released as “Mumbles,”
was recorded only because the session had gone so smoothly that the
musicians had extra studio time on their hands. Much to his surprise he
found himself with a hit.
When
“The Tonight Show” moved to the West Coast in 1972, Mr. Terry stayed in
New York. Jazz was at something of a low ebb commercially, but he
managed to stay busy both in and out of the studios and even found work
for a 17-piece band
he had formed in 1967. Between 1978 and 1981 he took the band to Asia,
Africa, South America and Europe under the auspices of the State
Department. Most of his concert and nightclub work, though, was as the
leader of a quartet or quintet.
Mr.
Terry also became active in jazz education, appearing at high school
and college clinics, writing jazz instruction books and running a summer
jazz camp. He was an adviser to the International Association of Jazz
Educators and chairman of the academic council of the Thelonious Monk
Institute of Jazz. For many years he was also an adjunct professor at
William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., to which he donated his
archive of instruments, sheet music, correspondence and memorabilia in
2004.
Mr.
Terry’s first marriage, to Mayola Robinson, ended in divorce. His
second wife, the former Pauline Reddon, died in 1979. In addition to his
wife, his survivors include two stepsons, Gary and Tony Paris, and
several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Mr.
Terry was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1991
and was given a lifetime achievement award by the Recording Academy in
2010. Diabetes and other health problems forced him to cut down on
touring in the 1990s, but he remained active into the new century. He
appeared in New York nightclubs as recently as 2008, doing more singing
than playing but with his spirit intact.
And
Mr. Terry, who in recent years had been living in Pine Bluff, continued
to be a mentor to young musicians after his performing days were over.
An acclaimed 2014 documentary, “Keep On Keepin’ On,”
directed by Alan Hicks, told the story of his relationship with a
promising young pianist, Justin Kauflin, whom Mr. Terry first taught at
William Paterson, and with whom he continued to work even after being
hospitalized.
“The only way I knew how to keep going,” Mr. Terry wrote in his autobiography, “Clark,” published in 2011, “was to keep going.”
A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: Clark Terry, 94, Master of Jazz Trumpet, Dies. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper
Talking Trumpet with Clark Terry: Still Active on His 90th Birthday
To quote Duke Ellington, Clark Terry's playing style is “simply
beyond category.” An alum of both the Basie and Ellington orchestras,
Clark Terry is now a legend on trumpet and flugelhorn, and widely
recognized as 'the father of jazz education.' One of the first young
music students Clark mentored was Quincy Jones. As a kid Clark had such passion for music he fashioned an instrument
out of a pipe and a piece of garden hose. The sound was so bad
that neighbors pitched in $12.50 and bought him a horn from a pawn shop.
Obviously, it was a very good investment. Clark Terry says that though he never studied music formally, he was
well- educated in the literature of the big bands. “I attended the
'University of Ellingtonia.' And of course, Basie was the prep school in
order to graduate into the Ellington school. Ellington was far more
knowledgeable as far as theory and counterpoint was concerned, but Basie
had that knowledge about time, tempo, swinging and simplicity.” Clark
Terry belongs to a generation of artists who brought a new level of
mastery and perfection to jazz performance in the post-WWII years.
Clark Terry, second from right, after his first stage show with Ellington‘s band in Harlem, 1955. Photo courtesy Harlem World.
Clark has devoted considerable time and effort to passing on his
knowledge to succeeding generations of musicians. He recently donated
his archive of memorabilia to William Paterson College in New Jersey,
one venue where he is an adjunct professor. And he still takes time to
teach children in his home. A pioneer in introducing the flugelhorn to jazz, Clark is the first
master of the instrument, which plays the same notes as the trumpet but
is internally shaped more like a French horn. Thus, it produces a
mellow, haunting sound. Using a golf analogy, Clark compares the trumpet
to a driver and the flugelhorn to a putter. Today modern-style jazz
trumpeters often use a flugelhorn because of Clark Terry. He has been a
pioneer in other ways as well. In the 1950s Clark was the first
African-American to be hired as a network TV staff musician. And
he helped break down racial barriers in Broadway pit orchestras.
Clark Terry performing with students, 2004. Photo courtesy William Paterson University.
Famous for his 'Mumbles' routine—a spoof on the blues bars of
his hometown St. Louis—Clark developed a large following in the 1960s,
performing in the NBC Orchestra on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Growing up in St. Louis in the 1920s and 30s, Clark was influenced by
Fate Marable and New Orleans trumpeters lured to St. Louis,
while working the Streckfus riverboat line. This week on Riverwalk Jazz we hear from Clark Terry on the
occasion of his 90th birthday. And we listen to tracks from his
repertoire with the Basie and Ellington orchestras, recorded live at The
Landing with The Jim Cullum Jazz Band in the 1990s. Former Cullum Band bassist Don Mopsick recalls his first Riverwalk Jazz
rehearsal with Clark in San Antonio. “At the start of the rehearsal we
were all standing in a circle, and I was directly opposite Clark with
the bell of his flugelhorn pointing straight at me. We began rehearsing
the chart on “Come Sunday.” Before I joined the Cullum Band, I was
already well familiar with Clark’s playing on records and had even
played a few jam session gigs with him in Florida. But nothing prepared
me for that huge, warm, soulful sound pouring out of that horn that day.
It went right through me.”
L-R Mike Pittsley-trombone, Jim Cullum-cornet,
Eddie Torres-drums, Clark Terry-trumpet/flugelhorn and Allan
Vache-clarinet, 1991. Photo courtesy Riverwalk Jazz.
Jim Cullum says of jazz master Clark Terry:
"Jazz trumpeter Clark Terry is now 90 years old and he is still going
strong. These days Clark is routinely wheeled onto stage and is
afflicted with a variety of ailments, but when he gets that trumpet in
his hands he is off and running with displays of on-the-spot creativity
and virtuosity that mark the master jazz player. His sound and style are
instantly recognizable.
I have had the good fortune to appear with Clark both at festivals and on several Riverwalk
radio broadcasts. In addition to his immaculate playing, Clark is a
wellspring of matchless and seemingly endless accounts of the 'old days'
when he was a key member of both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington
orchestras. The stories are rich with energy and enthusiasm, clearly
displaying his love for the music and the life that goes with it—the
musicians, the history, the audiences and his students."
Listeners to Riverwalk Jazz this week will be treated to Clark Terry's great sense of humor, the poignancy of his storytelling and his masterful playing.
Photo credit for Home Page: Clark Terry Photo courtesy Academy of Achievement.
Clark Terry plays trumpet and flluegelhorn during a performance at
the Jack Kleinsinger's Highlights in Jazz 'Salute to Jimmy Cobb' concert
at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, New York, New York, March 10,
2005. Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images
Trumpeter Clark Terry, a jazz
legend who in his seven decades as a musician and bandleader
collaborated with artists ranging from Quincy Jones and Duke Ellington
to Charles Mingus and Count Basie, passed away Saturday following
complications from a long battle with diabetes. He was 94. For his
contributions to jazz music, Terry was given the Grammy Lifetime
Achievement Award in 2010. “Our beloved Clark Terry has joined the big band in heaven where
he’ll be singing and playing with the angels. He left us peacefully,
surrounded by his family, students and friends,” Terry’s wife Gwen wrote
on the musician’s official Facebook.
“Clark has known and played with so many amazing people in his life. He
has found great joy in his friendships and his greatest passion was
spending time with his students. We will miss him every minute of every
day, but he will live on through the beautiful music and positivity that
he gave to the world. Clark will live in our hearts forever.” Earlier
this year, Terry was placed in hospice care.
The St. Louis-born Terry started his career as a sideman for jazz
greats like Count Basie and Duke Ellington before beginning his own
stint as bandleader in 1955. As one of the most in-demand musicians in
his field, Terry is listed in the credits of over a hundred jazz
recordings with styles ranging from scat and swing to bebop and big
band. Terry’s collaborations range from playing flugelhorn alongside
Thelonious Monk’s piano on 1958’s In Orbit (Terry also featured on Monk’s landmark Brilliant Corners the previous year) to Quincy Jones’ Big Band Bossa Nova in 1960 to the duo he formed with Oscar Peterson in the Seventies. Non-jazz fans might recognize Terry from his frequent appearances on The Tonight Show as he parlayed his talents into a decade-long gig as a member of Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show
band. On the program, Terry would perform a handful of his own tracks
that featured vocals, including “Mumbles” and his rendition of the jazz
standard “Squeeze Me.” Terry’s contributions to music education were as important as his many
recordings and collaborations, as the trumpeter spent years teaching the
art of jazz. Most recently, Terry starred in the 2014 documentary Keep On Keepin’ On,
which chronicled the then-93-year-old trumpeter mentoring a blind
pianist/jazz prodigy named Justin Kaulflin. The film was produced by
another of Terry’s pupils, Quincy Jones, and placed on the shortlist for
the Best Documentary Academy Award. In addition to three Grammy nominations and the Grammy Lifetime
Achievement award, Terry was also named an NEA Jazz Master and inducted
into the Downbeat Hall of Fame among countless honors.
Clark Terry, a major force in jazz for some seven
decades, died yesterday, Feb. 21. His death was confirmed by his widow,
Gwen Terry, on the artist’s Facebook page. The precise cause of death
and the location were not noted, but Terry had long been suffering from
advanced diabetes. He had been admitted into hospice care in early
February and had been experiencing failing health for several years
before that. He was 94.
A highly influential trumpeter and flugelhornist, Terry-who was named an
NEA Jazz Master in 1991-was also a respected educator: The Clark Terry
International Institute of Jazz Studies, at the now-defunct Teikyo
Westmar University in LeMars, Iowa, was named in his honor in 1994 after
Terry received an honorary doctorate there. Terry also held doctorates
from the Berklee College of Music and the University of New Hampshire.
Terry was responsible for organizing numerous jazz camps and clinics
throughout his career and was instrumental in the launch of the Jazz
Mobile and the Harlem Youth Band. Beginning in 2000, he hosted the Clark
Terry Jazz Festival at the University of New Hampshire. Among his many
awards, Terry received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Grammys.
Terry’s career spanned a vast swath of jazz history: He was one of few
musicians who worked in both Count Basie’s and Duke Ellington’s big
bands (1948-51 and 1951-59, respectively), and he eased into the bebop
milieu without difficulty, influencing Miles Davis, Quincy Jones and
others. Beginning in 1960, Terry also spent a dozen years as a staff
musician at NBC, where he served as a member of the Tonight Show‘s
house band-the first black musician on the NBC payroll. Technically
gifted, versatile and both lyrical and rhythmic in his playing, Terry
prided himself on his ability to adapt to many subgenres of jazz.
Born Dec, 14, 1920, in East St. Louis, Ill., the seventh of 11 children,
Clark Terry lived a hardscrabble childhood-his mother died when he was
young and Terry’s abusive father kicked him out of the family’s home
when Clark was 12. Music provided solace-according to legend, Terry
built a trumpet from a funnel and water hose, but the first real
instruments he played were trombone (because his school had run out of
trumpets) and bugle, performing in his high school band. After being
urged by a professional musician to pursue trumpet more seriously, Terry
found odd jobs (including playing for a traveling carnival), and turned
professional in the early 1940s, performing with outfits such as Ida
Cox’s Darktown Scandals band. He played in the U.S. Navy band during
World War II. Following the war’s end, Terry worked with Lionel Hampton
as well as Charlie Barnet, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Charlie Ventura,
and George Hudson.
The Basie and Ellington gigs boosted Terry’s profile considerably and
although he remained a sideman and collaborator, he also began recording
as a leader in the mid-’50s, releasing recordings on such labels as
EmArcy, Riverside, Candid, Prestige, Verve, Mainstream, Mercury,
Vanguard, Impulse!, Concord, Chesky and others. His sideman work found
him supporting a diverse cast of leaders including Gary Burton, Dizzy
Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Art Farmer, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Milt
Jackson, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, Louie Bellson,
Lalo Schifrin, Cannonball Adderley, Cecil Taylor, Louis Armstrong, J.J.
Johnson, Oliver Nelson, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Dinah Washington,
Charles Mingus, Blue Mitchell, Stanley Turrentine, Ray Charles, Bill
Evans, Yusef Lateef, Wes Montgomery, Billy Taylor, Quincy Jones, Jimmy
Heath, Clifford Brown and many others. He co-led a band with trombonist
Bob Brookmeyer during the early 1960s.
That list also included pianist Oscar Peterson, whose 1964 Mercury album Oscar Peterson Trio + One
(the plus one being Terry) featured Terry’s composition “Mumbles.”
Scatted by Terry, the tune became something of a signature for Terry
over the ensuing years, exposing his humorous side, as did his “duets”
with himself, sometimes on more than one instrument. The Jazz Discography
by Tom Lord lists a total of 902 Clark Terry sessions from a Feb. 1947
V-Disc recording to July 2008, 788 of those as sideman and 114 as
leader, more than 3400 unique tunes in all.
Beginning in 1972, Clark led his own bands, including his Big B-A-D
Band, and also became part of Norman Granz’s traveling Jazz at the
Philharmonic All-Stars aggregation. During his later years, Terry
concentrated increasingly on the flugelhorn.
Terry published Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry in 2011 and was the subject of last year’s documentary film Keep On Keepin’ On,
which chronicles Terry’s mentorship of the 23-year-old blind piano
prodigy Justin Kauflin. The Clark Terry Archive at William Paterson
University in Wayne, N.J., contains instruments, arrangements,
recordings and memorabilia.
Clark
Terry’s career in jazz spans more than sixty years. He is a world-class
trumpeter, flugelhornist, educator, and NEA Jazz Master. He performed
for seven U.S. Presidents, and was a Jazz Ambassador for State
Department tours in the Middle East and Africa. More than fifty jazz
festivals in all seven continents still feature him. He received a
Grammy Award, two Grammy certificates, three Grammy nominations,
thirteen honorary doctorates, keys to cities, lifetime achievements and
halls of fame awards. He was knighted in Germany and is the recipient of
the French Order of Arts and Letters. Clark’s star on the Walk of Fame,
and his Black World History Museum’s life-sized wax figure can both be
visited in his hometown, St. Louis, Missouri. Clark composed more than two hundred jazz songs, and his books
include Let’s Talk Trumpet: From Legit to Jazz, Interpretation of the
Jazz Language and Clark Terry’s System of Circular Breathing for
Woodwind and Brass Instruments. He recorded with The London Symphony Orchestra, The Dutch Metropole
Orchestra, The Duke Ellington Orchestra and The Chicago Jazz Orchestra,
at least thirty high school and college ensembles, his own duos, trios,
quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, and two big bands — Clark Terry’s
Big Bad Band and Clark Terry’s Young Titans of Jazz. His career as both
leader and sideman with more than three hundred recordings demonstrates
that he is one of the luminaries in jazz. Clark’s discography reads like
a “Who’s Who In Jazz,” with personnel that includes great jazz artists
such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald,
Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington, Ben Webster, Charlie
Barnet, Doc Severinsen, Ray Charles, Billy Strayhorn, Dexter Gordon,
Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Coleman Hawkins, Zoot
Sims, Milt Jackson, Bob Brookmeyer, Jon Faddis, and Dianne Reeves. “Clark Terry,” writes Chuck Berg, “is one of contemporary music’s
great innovators, and justly celebrated for his great technical
virtuosity, swinging lyricism, and impeccable good taste. Combining
these with the gifts of a great dramatist, Clark is a master storyteller
whose spellbinding musical ‘tales’ leave audiences thrilled and always
awaiting more. “In
the 1940s, after serving in the Navy, Clark’s musical star rose rapidly
with successful stints in the bands of George Hudson, Charlie Barnet,
Charlie Ventura, Eddie Vinson, and then in 1948 — the great Count Basie.
In addition to his outstanding musical contribution to these bands, Mr.
Terry exerted a positive influence on musicians such as Miles Davis and
Quincy Jones, both of whom credit Clark as a formidable influence
during the early stages of their careers. In 1951 Clark was asked to
join Maestro Duke Ellington’s renowned orchestra where he stayed for
eight years as a featured soloist.” Following a tour with Harold Arlen’s “Free and Easy” show directed by
Quincy Jones in 1960, Clark’s international recognition soared when he
accepted an offer from the National Broadcasting Company to become its
first African American staff musician. Soon after, Clark became a ten
year television star as one of the spotlighted players in the Tonight
Show band where he scored a smash hit as a singer with his irrepressible
“Mumbles.” From the 70’s through the 90’s, Clark performed at Carnegie
Hall, Town Hall, and Lincoln Center, toured with the Newport Jazz All
Stars and Jazz at the Philharmonic, and he was featured with Skitch
Henderson’s New York Pops Orchestra. Since 2000, he hosts Clark Terry
Jazz Festivals on land and sea, and his own jazz camps. Prompted early in his career by Dr. Billy Taylor, Clark and Milt
Hinton bought instruments for and gave instruction to young hopefuls
which planted the seed that became Jazz Mobile in Harlem. This venture
tugged at Clark’s greatest love – involving youth in the Perpetuation of
Jazz. Between global performances, Clark continues to share
wholeheartedly his jazz expertise and encourage students. That teaching
has involved William Paterson since the development of this archive,
where Prof. Terry continues to spend time on campus each semester,
teaching master classes, ensembles and performing concerts with WP jazz
studies majors. He and his wife Gwen continue to be closely involved in
the creation and maintenance of this Archive.
The Clark Terry Archive contains:
Original parts sets of the Clark Terry “Big Bad Band” of the 1960s and 1970s
Awards, citations, plaques, and keys to the city in honor of Clark Terry’s accomplishments
CT model flugelhorn and trumpet, designed by Clark Terry
Handwritten tune lists and set lists
Numerous original historic tour posters from around the world
Historic photographic images of Clark Terry’ s career and life
A world renowned jazz flugelhornist and trumpeter, Clark
Terry is known for his musical blend of artistry, energy and good taste.
As an enthusiastic propagator of the jazz tradition, Terry is a
devoted educator who teaches young people about the music and the
history that comprise this art form.
Terry was born the seventh of ten children to Mary and Clark Terry on
December 10, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri. Terry's father worked for a
gas company, and his mother, who did day work, died when Terry was only
seven years old. Terry's early introduction to music came when his
older sister, Ada, married tuba player, Sy McField. McField was
performing with Dewey Jackson and the Musical Ambassadors, and one of
the members of the band, the trumpet player, owned a candy store and
used to give Terry caramels and Mary Jane's. Not incidentally, this
early experience incited Terry's fondness for the trumpet. While Terry
states that he never had a formal music lesson, hearing the Musical
Ambassadors inspired him to try his hand at creating a musical sound of
his own. With a piece of garden hose and other discarded parts, Terry
and his brother made their own instruments. The neighbors, tired of
hearing the noise from Terry's homemade contraption, pitched in and
bought him a $12.50 trumpet from a pawn shop. From then on Terry began
a dedicated course of self-education, learning by trial and error how
to play the trumpet. After attending Vashon High School, Terry performed in small
club in St. Louis, before joining the Navy in 1942, where he played with
the United States Naval Band while stationed at the Great Lakes Naval
Station in Chicago. After leaving the Navy in 1945, Terry played with
jazz notables such as Lionel Hampton, George Hudson, and Charlie Barnet.
In 1948 Terry joined the legendary Count Basie, with whom he remained
until 1951 when another of the jazz world's greats, Duke Ellington,
lured Terry away from Basie. Terry played with Ellington for the next
eight years, during which time Terry recalls being inducted into the
"University of Ellingtonia." Terry states that Ellington had an uncanny
way of getting the best out of his musicians, a skill Terry says he
acquired from Ellington by "osmosis." He explains: "so many things you
don't even know you possess, until you get up there on the bench, then
you reach for the Ellington. Bang. And it works every time." ( Post Standard
4/13/97). While Terry undoubtedly gained an invaluable education
playing with Ellington, Terry's modern, exuberant style rejuvenated the
Ellington group's more traditional sound, as well. In 1959 Terry joined Quincy Jones's orchestra to play Harold Arlen's opera, Free and Easy . One year later, Terry accepted an offer to join the Tonight Show
band and became the first African American staff musician to work for
the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Terry credits the Urban
League, for confronting NBC about the lack of African American musicians
employed by the company. When NBC responded that blacks were not
suited for work as professional studio musicians, the Urban League
submitted Terry's name on a list of qualified musicians. NBC offered
him the job, and Terry remained there for twelve years as one of the
spotlighted players in the Tonight Show band. It was during this time he received the nickname, Mumbles, for his smash-hit parody of scat singing. When the Tonight Show
moved to Los Angeles, Terry remained in New York. He continued to do
freelance work and lead Clark Terry's Big B-A-D Band, which he had
formed in 1966. He recorded regularly in the 1960s, including a
classic set with the Oscar Peterson Trio and performed several dates
with the quintet he co-led with valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer. In the
1970s, he performed in Africa, the Middle East and Pakistan as a
goodwill ambassador for the State Department. Since the 1970s Terry
has performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall and Lincoln Center, toured
with the Newport Jazz All Stars and was featured with Skitch Henderson's
New York Pops Orchestra. In 1986 Terry recorded the tribute, To Duke and Basie, and in 1993 he honored Louis Armstrong on his What a Wonderful World: For Lou. He also received praise for his 2004 rendition of Porgy and Bess .
In addition to his illustrious touring and recording career,
Terry has long-served as one of the country's premier jazz educators.
He has hosted numerous jazz camps and clinics, served as the jazz
artist-in-residence at William Paterson University, and frequently
mentors and plays with the next generation of up-and-coming musicians.
In 2004, as part of his commitment to promoting the legacy and history
of jazz, Terry donated his personal archives, including manuscripts,
recordings, instruments and even an African walking stick given to him
by Dizzy Gillespie, to William Paterson University. Despite his fight
with diabetes, which has affected his vision, and his surgery for colon
cancer that has been in remission for three years, Terry continues to
play jazz and educate young musicians.
A veritable institution of the jazz tradition, Terry has composed
more than 200 jazz songs, performed for seven US presidents, received 13
honorary doctorates, played with nearly every jazz musician in the
business and served as a mentor to Quincy Jones, Miles Davis and Wynton
and Bradford Marsalis. He has received a Grammy Award, two Grammy
certificates, three Grammy nominations, was knighted in Germany,
inducted into the NEA Jazz Hall of Fame and is the recipient of the
prestigious French Order of Arts and Letters.
Terry has two sons, Hiawatha and Victor (deceased) and two
stepsons, Gary and Tony. He lives in with his wife, Gwen and continues
to perform at venues around the world.
While many listeners discovered Clark Terry during his time with The Tonight Show band in the 1960s and ’70s, a new generation of fans has emerged, thanks to Alan Hicks’ 2014 documentary, Keep On Keepin’ On, which chronicled the trumpeter’s mentorship of pianist Justin Kauflin, then in his twenties. But Terry’s support for young players began long before then. Apart
from being one of the most distinctively melodic and humorous voices in
the trumpet lineage, Terry (1920–2015) remained a fierce ally of
emerging artists throughout his career. “Clark Terry embodied the beauty of what our jazz family was, and
is, and did so until his final moments,” said longtime friend and
collaborator Quincy Jones. “When we were coming up in the ’50s as young
beboppers, we had no choice but to stand together, because all we had
was each other. For Clark, that was the essence of what our music was:
family, tradition, life, love, sharing, giving back, encouragement and
staying involved in the perpetuation of our craft.” As a teen, Jones frequently would receive informal instruction from
Terry amid the trumpeter’s busy tour schedule. Terry’s willingness to
share had an impact on the 14-year-old, one that would reverberate as
Jones began to “pay it forward,” mentoring those coming up behind him.
“It would be years later,” Jones said, “after I began touring with
[Lionel Hampton] and Dizzy [Gillespie], that I fully understood how
exhausted [Terry] would have been after a long night working—and how
truly generous and kind he was to me.” In 1959, Terry put his money where his mouthpiece was. He left Duke
Ellington’s band to join his young mentee’s group for a gig in Paris—a
gesture that Jones described as one of the most humbling moments of his
life. Terry seemed to view taking chances on rising and unknown players
as an important opportunity. Perhaps no one remembers that investment as
viscerally as vocalist Dianne Reeves. “Clark really saw the content of people’s artistry before
anything,” said Reeves, who credits Terry as the artist who “discovered”
her. “So, he invited young women, young men, young women of color,
young men of color—it didn’t matter. He saw you. And that is a very,
very powerful gift that he gave all of us, because it helped us to move
forward.” Reeves views her time on the bandstand with Terry as a “living
school” whose fearless professor prompted her to take risks of her own.
“I started to experiment,” she said. “He would egg me on or pull me
back. His belief in me gave me an immeasurable amount of confidence.” Reeves and Jones recount their time with Terry as a holistic study
through which they learned how to conduct themselves both on stage and
off. Drummer Sylvia Cuenca spent nearly two decades touring with Terry,
who got her phone number one night after she sat in with him at the
Village Vanguard. “A few weeks later, he hired me for a Grammy party gig
and he continued to hire me for another 17 years,” Cuenca said. In
addition to absorbing his “concise and lyrical phrases locked into
time,” she, too, came to know Terry’s three-dimensional mentoring.
“Observing him off the bandstand,” she said, “I’ve realized the
importance of handling oneself with poise, dignity and class.” Like that of Art Blakey, Terry’s influence as a mentor extends
through multiple generations. “He was one of the greatest trumpeters to
ever grace the planet,” Jones said. “His shoulders are among those I was
allowed to stand upon to become the musician that I am today.” DB
Clark
Terry was positively a giant, one of the most joyful forces in jazz. A
huge irreplaceable void has been left in the jazz community since his
recent passing at the age of 94 on February 21, 2015. His sense of
humor, slippery phrasing, signature plunger muted trumpet and flugelhorn
playing will always live on. Born in St. Louis Missouri on December 14,
1920 his career came to a fruitful start through the bands of greats
such as alto saxophonist and vocalist Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Charlie
Barnet, and Charlie Ventura to name a few. In 1948, he joined Count Basie’s
band, and in one his most notable associations, Duke Ellington where he
remained from 1951-1958. Terry was also instrumental in pioneering the
use of the flugelhorn in jazz, along with Freddie Hubbard and Chuck
Mangione as the horn’s most famous exponents. In Ellington’s orchestra, it was where the trumpeter would become
truly known for his unique, individual sound, sense of humor, technique
and stylistic range. On the classic Such Sweet Thunder
(Columbia, 1957) Terry, playing the part of Puck from Shakespeare’s
“Midsummer Night’s Dream”, makes the famous quotation of “Lord, what
fool these mortals be!” a demonstration of his much loved, vocal like
technique applied to the horn, and in pieces written by Ellington, Terry
would showcase his playing ranging from swing all the way to bebop
(“Newport Up” from Ellington at Newport (Columbia, 1956). While as a member of Ellington’s orchestra, Terry embarked on a
series of solo recordings for Riverside, and in 1961 he recorded as part
of Oscar Peterson’s group Oscar Peterson Trio+1 (Verve)
debuting the blues “Mumbles” where Terry’s signature rambling, purposely
unintelligible scat vocals were used to hilarious effect. Terry was the
first trumpeter to explore the use of the Varitone attachment, made
most famous by saxophonists, Sonny Stitt, Eddie Harris, and Lou
Donaldson on the album It’s What’s Happenin (Impulse! 1967). Throughout the sixties and seventies Terry remained busy by playing
in the Tonight Show orchestra as well as touring with the reformed Jazz
at the Philharmonic aggregations, appearing as a leader and sideman for
the Pablo label, taking part in memorable recordings featuring matchups
with Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge. and
the Newport All Stars. Terry remained an ambassador of jazz for many
years, even as he suffered through health complications from diabetes,
causing him to lose his sight, and have both legs amputated. His tone
and ideas continued to be effervescent, and he remained teaching even as
his health failed. Students from all over the world would attend his
home to be taught, as shown in last year’s documentary Keep on Keepin’ On
where Terry befriended young pianist Justin Kauflin and mentored him.
Clark’s influence and spirit in this music has been huge, it’s so
fortunate seasoned listeners, students and new listeners of jazz will
have the wealth of music he made to enjoy for generations to come.
Clark Terry in New York City, in 1976. Photo by Tom Marcello.
Clark Terry, the legend of jazz,
just turned 93 on Dec. 14, so happy birthday, Clark! He was born in 1920
– the same year as Charlie Parker – and was raised in St. Louis,
Missouri. Salvaging materials from an empty lot, Clark built his first
“trumpet,” out of a length of water hose and a funnel, and “when I blew
on the edge of that funnel, I got a sound something like blowing into a
jug.” Realizing his determination to play, his neighbors, who were
hardly well-to-do, chipped in and bought him his first real instrument.
Evidently they had great expectations for him. For a book called “The Jazz
Masters: Setting the Record Straight,” to be published later this year,
jazz writer Peter Zimmerman recently spoke with Clark and his wife Gwen
by phone from their home in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The interview that
follows is an exclusive story for Allegro. To find out what’s new in
Clark’s life, you can follow his weekly blog at www.ClarkTerry.com. Clark Terry has been a member of Local 802 since 1954. If there’s one thing that Clark Terry
enjoys as much as playing his trumpet, it’s teaching young musicians,
thereby giving back to jazz all the beautiful things that jazz has given
him over a career spanning some eight decades. Due to a series of
serious health setbacks over the past five years, he is no longer able
to travel to concerts and recording studios or teach in schools and
universities, but a veritable revolving door of students from all over
the country and indeed the whole world – recently from Canada and
Portugal – continue to file into his makeshift “classroom.” There’s nothing that Clark loves more
than holding court around the kitchen table, just visiting, and talking
not only about music, but life in general. A humble, self-effacing man,
he especially likes to hear what they have to say, rather than just
tooting his own horn, so to speak. On these occasions, he used to enjoy
drinking coffee and an occasional “taste” of sherry, but since suffering
a heart attack in 2008, he has switched to water and an occasional cup
of tea. For the past half a century, Clark has been paying it forward by making jazz education his number one priority. At one major American university alone,
he has taught some 50,000 students! I crunched the numbers and this is
really accurate, and not just mere hyperbole. Says David Seiler, head of
the University of New Hampshire’s jazz studies program, “When God
created Clark, he broke the mold.” Clark earned an honorary doctorate
from UNH in 1978; since then, he has racked up no fewer than 15
additional degrees from various other universities. Since becoming a co-founder of
Jazzmobile in the mid-1960s, along with the pianist Dr. Billy Taylor,
bassist Milt Hinton, and arts patron Daphne Arnstein, Clark has
personally donated dozens of instruments to aspiring musicians who
wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford them. All of this, in addition to appearing
on some 905 albums, hundreds more than Louis Armstrong, Harry “Sweets”
Edison, or Dizzy Gillespie (who once called Clark “the greatest trumpet
player on the earth”), spending a decade with the Basie and Ellington
orchestras (from the late 40s through the late 50s), serving as the
first on-staff African-American to work for NBC’s Tonight Show band in
the 60s, a stint that lasted a decade, spending many grueling decades
touring the country and world, and appearing at more than 50 festivals
on all six continents (but not Antarctica). He also served in the Navy as a
bandsman during World War II and represented the State Department as a
jazz ambassador in Africa and the Middle East. He was awarded the
National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master Award in 1991 and the Grammy
Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. He has even been knighted in
Germany. Over his lifetime, Clark has seen 19 presidents come and go,
starting with Woodrow Wilson – and has shaken hands with eight of them! Some have said that Clark’s sound on
trumpet (and his pet instrument, the flugelhorn) is so unique you can
recognize it after hearing only three notes, or two notes, or even just
one. He aspires to get a round, velvety tone that he describes as
“mellifluous” (which comes from the Latin words that mean “flowing as if
with honey”). In addition, Clark pioneered the use of
the flugelhorn as a solo jazz instrument, prior to which it had only
been recorded in ensemble work, notably in Jimmie Lunceford’s big band
of the 1930s. Clark’s flugelhorn was first featured in 1957 on Billy
Taylor’s “Taylor-Made Jazz,” which featured Ellington veterans Johnny
Hodges, Harry Carney and Paul Gonsalves. The first time that Clark
brought the instrument to one of Ellington’s rehearsals, Duke ate it up. These days, when good manners seem to
have gone by the wayside, Clark is old-school polite. When I told him
that I had talked to one jazz musician who finds the word “jazz”
offensive, he replied with typical Clark directness that “I don’t think
it matters what it’s called, as long as you’re doing something that you
feel, and something that’s for real.” The same musician, I said, also
frowned on the word “bebop,” instead calling it “revolutionary music”
because, he said, this was when (in the mid-1940s) black musicians
started writing their own tunes and collecting the royalties, rather
than recording songs that had been written by white composers. To which
Clark replied, “Different strokes for different folks.” Then he showed
me why bebop is called “bebop” – by proceeding to scat the first line of
Thelonious Monk’s “Well You Needn’t”! Although Clark has been labeled a swing
trumpeter, he is equally adept at bop. In fact, my favorite Clark
recording session is led by the raconteur/vocalist Babs Gonzalez. On a
sadly long-out-of-print LP from 1962 called “Sunday Afternoon with Babs
Gonzalez at Small’s Paradise,” Clark trades ones with himself on trumpet
and flugelhorn! (The album also features Johnny Griffin, Horace Parlan,
Buddy Catlett, and Ben Riley, and, for my money, the smokingest-ever
rendition of W.C. Handy’s old warhorse, “The St. Louis Blues.”) Then, of course, there’s the legacy
from his eight years with Duke, who wrote “Juniflip” especially for
Clark. He recorded it with Ellington twice in 1958, and again in 1996
with the DePaul University Big Band (and in the same session, a stunning
version of Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “Something to Live For”). Many of these songs are available on
iTunes. If you’d like to check out the early stuff, there’s a great
YouTube of his rendition of the old chestnut “Deep Purple” with the
Charlie Barnet band, recorded in 1947, the year before he joined Basie. In addition to recording with people
like Oscar and Ella, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Aretha and Wilson Pickett,
and blues shouter Big Joe Turner, his work also turns up on recordings
by relatively obscure artists the likes of Gege Telesforo, Grassella
Oliphant, Arne “Dompan” Domnérus, and Cachao y Su Ritmo Caliente. Over
the past seven decades, Clark has worked with just about everybody –
even Snoop Dogg! Clark broke color barriers as one of
the first African-Americans to join Charlie Barnet’s all-white group.
His disdain of any type of discrimination was cemented by an incident
that occurred early on in his career. In Clark’s book, in a chapter
entitled “Nigga,” he vividly describes the time in Meridian,
Mississippi, while touring the country with the Reuben and Cherry
Carnival (earning $2.50 per week). A security cop conked him on the head
with his nightstick, and he was almost lynched by a group of white men,
before being saved by another group of white men, who worked for the
circus. While nursing the bump on his head, he
recalls, “I reached out for the crew guy who had come to my rescue and
we shook hands. Unforgettable handshake. Firm and warm. Indelibly etched
in my mind.” From that point on, Clark vowed to
never judge anyone by his race. According to Gwen, her husband has made
it a point to hire people of all ethnicities, as well as female
musicians. One of Clark’s protégés, Greg Glassman,
remembers his apprenticeship with Clark, an informal one, twice a week,
for free. At the time, Clark was a real night owl who regularly stayed
up until six in the morning. At the time Greg was going through a messy
break-up and knew he could always call Clark for advice, even at four in
the morning. Although Clark may not always be totally open-minded, can
be stubborn and moody, and likes to get his way, he more than makes up
for these traits by being, in Greg’s words, “one of the most vivacious,
generous, givers to the world – specifically to younger musicians – that
there’s ever been.” Others have described him as
kindhearted, ethical, and hilarious; in his prime, he was a tall,
physically fit, strong man. (Early in life, he considered becoming a
boxer, but decided he didn’t want anyone to bust his trumpet chops.) Gwen remembers one instance when Clark
was hospitalized just before he was scheduled to give a concert with his
students. “He cares so much, almost to a fault sometimes, because his
students come first,” she told me, adding that after the heart attack,
“he was in the ICU, hooked up to these machines and all kinds of things,
[and] he asked the doctors in charge if they could please just unhook
him long enough to go and play the concert with the students who had
practiced for a year. And he said, ‘They’ve practiced for a year, and I
promise you if you let me go and play, I promise you I’ll come back.’” And he did. She describes Clark as “the most good-hearted, caring, sharing, sincere, devoted, and compassionate man I’ve ever met.” Clark is perhaps most famous for his
years with Count Basie, from 1948 to 1951, followed by nearly a decade
with Duke Ellington (1951-1959). As the dates indicate, he went directly
from the Basie band to Ellington’s. Incidentally, Clark is one of only a
select few who have played in both bands, although he wasn’t around in
1961 when the two leaders recorded together, on an album called “First
Time!” I asked Clark what the difference was
between playing in the two bands and he told me that for one thing, he
had to audition for Basie, whereas Duke decided he liked Clark’s playing
and came after him. An admirer of Duke’s talent, Basie let Clark go,
regretfully, but with his blessing. Secondly, Basie had a stable of great
arrangers who wrote tunes and charts for the band, notably Thad Jones,
Ernie Wilkins, Frank Foster, Neil Hefti, and Quincy Jones, whereas Duke
wrote and arranged his own music, either by himself or, starting in
1938, in collaboration with Strayhorn. And thirdly, Basie was laid back, while Duke was more orchestral-minded. While Clark was with Basie, Duke heard
something in Clark’s playing that he felt he needed to incorporate into
his band’s sound. There’s a famous, and very funny, story about this
recruiting campaign, which, again, is retold in full in Clark’s
excellent 2011 autobiography. The gist of it is that Duke tried to do
the deal secretly and Clark, who is an honest man, felt guilty for years
about sneaking around behind Basie’s back. All the while, Clark
actually had Basie’s tacit approval. Basie knew it was the right career
move for Clark, but he kept it to himself. Years later, after the truth
came out, Basie always good-naturedly teased Clark about the incident,
and they remained friends forevermore. Being a big Basie fan, I wondered how
on earth Clark could have decided to leave the that band and join up
with Ellington’s. The answer is simple, he told me: “He wowed us with
his music.” Ellington’s compositions were more complex. There was no
first or second trumpet. Each piece that Duke wrote was tailored to the
individual soloist. Not to mention that by the early 50s,
when Clark joined the band, the Duke Ellington Orchestra had become the
band – the undisputed greatest. Anyone would have jumped at the
opportunity to play with Duke. After having grown up in the Jim Crow
South, Clark has witnessed the integration of schools, mourned the loss
of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Kennedys, and
played countless benefits for the NAACP and other organizations. And now
here we are, in 2013, with a two-term African-American President in the
Oval Office, a scenario which would have been unheard of back when
Clark was building that first trumpet. Does he think that we’ve made any progress in race relations in America? “I don’t know,” he told me. “All I can say is, you can hope for the best, you know?” Finally, I asked him the secret to his longevity, and he replied, “But for the grace of God.” I recently read on his blog, incidentally, that he has a nickname for God. It’s “Big Prez.” Clark Terry’s family is currently accepting donations to pay for his continuing medical care. Please visit www.ClarkTerry.com/donate.
To contact the author, or for more information on his forthcoming book
“The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight,” write to Peter
Zimmerman at PodunkPete@gmail.com.
Clark TerryPhotograph by David Redfern/Redferns via Getty
Master
improvisers have a personality in their playing, a singularity to their
sound. They have the ability to adapt to any musical context while
maintaining a sense of personal identity, displaying distinct
individuality while always contributing to the needs of the collective.
One of the greatest practitioners of this humanistic art died on
Saturday: the ebullient, effervescent, irreplaceable, irrepressible
trumpet virtuoso Clark Terry.
Born into a poor family in St. Louis
in 1920, Terry would often tell the story of building a horn out of
junkyard parts—a garden hose attached to a funnel—since his family
couldn’t afford an instrument when he was a child. Even at the height of
his fame and technical expertise, he still played with the imagination
and abandon of that ten-year-old on a homemade creation; there have been
few musicians who so embodied the sound of musical joy, of playful
engagement and exploration. He was well cast as Puck in Duke Ellington
and Billy Strayhorn’s 1957 Shakespearean suite “Such Sweet Thunder”—his
playing glowed with trickster energy and elfish glee. The
trumpet (or the flugelhorn, a related instrument with a darker, fatter
sound that Terry single-handedly popularized among jazz brass players)
is a notoriously difficult instrument to play, but Terry made it dance.
He pioneered a kind of “doodle-tonguing” articulation, which allowed
notes to spill out of his horn without ever sounding rushed or frantic.
His tone was a wonder of flexibility and range, a warmer, more liquid
timbre than Miles Davis’s icy cool or Dizzy Gillespie’s bright attack.
(And if I were forced to name a triumvirate of post-Armstrong trumpet
innovators, those would be the three.) He employed a compendium of jazz
styles—from the growling plunger mutes of early big bands to the
lightning runs of bebop—while wholly transcending category. He was also
an entertainer, a witty man on the bandstand where his “Mumbles”
scat-singing routine was a big hit, but don’t let the comedy obscure the
music—Terry was a genius. Terry
was present at some of the most important moments of twentieth-century
American music. Coming up in St. Louis, he was a mentor and lifelong
friend to Miles Davis, who was six years Terry’s junior. A few years
later, during an extended stay in Seattle, a young Quincy Jones sought
him out for lessons, which Terry would give him at his hotel room in the
mornings, after Terry returned from late-night gigs and before Jones
would go to junior high school. After emerging from the Navy band in
1942 and developing his chops touring with regional big bands, he came
to national prominence as a featured soloist with Count Basie. In 1950,
Duke Ellington poached him from Basie’s band, starting a ten-year run in
what Terry always referred to as the University of Ellingtonia, one of
the most vibrant periods of Ellington’s career. Duke Ellington had
a creative (and psychological) gift for bringing the most out of his
musicians, crafting pieces that magnified and spotlighted the
extraordinary individual talents of his band members like Johnny Hodges
or Cootie Williams or Ben Webster. Terry provided Ellington, and
Ellington’s compositional alter ego Billy Strayhorn, a soloist whose
brilliance and fluidity thrived in the more harmonically and
structurally complex music Ellington and Strayhorn were developing in
the nineteen-fifties. One of my favorite sounds in recorded music is the
Ellington band in full roar, breaking on a dime to launch a Clark Terry
solo into the world.
In
1960, after his long tenure with Duke and a short stint with his former
student Quincy Jones, Terry became NBC’s first African-American staff
musician. In a time when studio gigs were the lifeblood of working
musicians in New York and Los Angeles, Terry was a trailblazer, and
actively fought to diversify the pool. The network heads weren’t brave
enough to appoint a black bandleader on the “Tonight Show,” so Doc
Severinsen got the job instead, but everyone knew Terry was the best
trumpeter in that band. Terry also formed a quintet with valve
trombonist Bob Brookmeyer; the tight arrangements and near-psychic
improvisational brass lines made that group stand out as the epitome of
small-group swing in the post-bop era. In the nineteen-seventies,
Terry fulfilled a lifelong dream by leading his own large ensemble, the
aptly named Big BAD Band. Along with the Thad Jones–Mel Lewis Orchestra,
Terry carried the big-band sound into the new decade, in a period when
the economic pressures of the shrinking jazz industry had made it almost
extinct. The band also became a teaching tool—Terry recognized the
hunger for jazz education in American universities, and became one of
the first musicians to make college workshops part of the touring
circuit. Education and mentoring young musicians became a central
component of Terry’s life mission. Terry continued playing
throughout the ensuing decades. Unlike many brass players, whose
technical abilities fade as age takes its toll on their embouchure, his
virtuosity remained intact well into his eighties. But even when his
health deteriorated, he was teaching students from his wheelchair or
bedside, as movingly captured in the recent documentary film “Keep On
Keepin’ On.” It is an inspiring story of musical mentorship, but also an
almost painfully intimate portrait of the vicissitudes of aging, and a
poignant tribute to the loving relationship between Terry and his wife,
Gwen. Happily, in addition to the film, Terry’s life and music
were well documented. His discography approaches a thousand recordings,
with well over a hundred as a leader. His autobiography captures his
gift for storytelling and his wry humor, especially in chronicling his
early years on the road, with struggles through segregation and gigs in
juke joints and carnivals, all while developing one of most distinctive
improvisational voices in music history. It pains me to never hear that
sound live again; no musician has made me laugh out loud in surprise and
wonder more often than Clark Terry. But his imprint is a lasting one—a
testament to the power of individual creativity, and a reminder that the
best we can do is to be like no one but ourselves.
Correction: The photograph accompanying the original version of this post depicted the wrong musician.
Trumpeter Clark Terry, who was born December 14, 1920, in St. Louis, Missouri, was widely known for his role in the Tonight Show Band in
the ’60s and ’70s (he was the band’s first black member), as well as
for his longtime associations with bandleaders Count Basie and Duke
Ellington. A brilliant improviser with boundless technical facility,
Terry was also famous for his humorous antics on the bandstand,
including playing his trumpet upside-down. But his most famous act was
undoubtedly his “mumbles” routine, a distinct style of scatting that
mixed nonsense syllables, grunts, noises and countless other forms of
linguistic jibberish. It was only natural that “Mumbles,” a track that featured Terry’s
scatting prominently, would become his trademark song. Here it is from
Terry’s Big B-A-D Band Live! album, which captured the titular big band at the Wichita Jazz Festival in 1974.
“Virtuosity means different things to different people. Musicians worship it when they encounter it because they understand its elusive mystery and endless process. But critics sometimes distrust it as a distraction, suspicious that a veneer of well-practiced skill may be camouflaging an emotional or creative apathy. Consistency may be admirable, but inconsistency often makes a better story. Clark Terry's surprises were subtle and came in oblique miniatures, easy to overlook and often undervalued. He was just so consistently brilliant, the wonders he wrought were hidden in their familiarity.”
-- John McDonough
"Every musician in the world who ever met Clark Terry is a better musician and person because of it. He now belongs to the ages."
-- Christian McBride, bassist
“What is deeper than respect and love?
That's what we felt: veneration."
-- Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter, bandleader
For one of my 2015 Christmas treats, I put up this post about Clark Terry.
No other Jazz musician embodied the Christmas spirit of love, tolerance and generosity more than Clark. He was an inspiration to me and a constant reminder that above all, Jazz is about having fun.
As the years go along, moods of mellow melancolia seem to occur more frequently especially, when I look out on the many satisfying musical memories that Jazz has brought into my life.
One musician who was a constant source of such delight was Clark Terry and I wanted to spend some time with him again by reposting this feature with a CD changer full of his music playing in the background.
The following portrait of Clark by John McDonough which appeared in the May/2015 issue of Downbeat magazine will tell you more about why Clark was such a special human being and one who was beloved throughout the Jazz community.
“WHEN CLARK TERRY DIED ON FEB. 21 [2015] in Pine Bluff, Arkansas — eight days after moving from his home to a nearby hospice — the jazz world lost not only one of its greatest trumpeters, but also one of its finest ambassadors. Terry had been suffering for several years with failing health exacerbated by diabetes. He was 94.
Some of his recent activities (from 2010 to 2013) were documented by director Alan Hicks in the film Keep On Keepin On, which chronicled Terry's decline with an unflinching honesty as he faced, among other things, amputation procedures for both legs. Through the health crises, he continued to mentor his latest protege, pianist Justin Kauflin. Produced by Quincy Jones— another Terry protege from long ago — the film debuted to great acclaim in April 2014 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The soundtrack, released Feb. 24 on Varese Sarabande, features historic recordings of Terry performing with Count Basie, Duke Ellington and the Jazz at the Philharmonic All-Stars.
Most musicians — trumpet players in particular — foretell their demise through their horns: shorter solos, weakening intonation, the strained high note or imprecise phrase. Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and even studio stalwarts like Harry Edison all buckled in their late years. Reluctant to give up the stage, they chose instead to devise ways of concealing and patching their weaknesses.
Clark Terry postponed that reckoning longer than nearly anyone, thanks to reserves of technique and an unquenchable optimism. Even as an octogenarian, he delivered masterful work. In 2005 I gave his recording of Porgy & Bess with Jeff Lindberg and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra a rare 5-star review in DownBeat. It was a virtually perfect performance.
I saw Terry perform around the same time at the Iridium in New York City and found that it was not a mirage of post-production trickery. Though walking with a cane, Terry still played with the effervescence and elegance I remembered as a 15-year-old fan sitting a few feet from the Duke Ellington Orchestra at Chicago's Blue Note club back in 1957. At the Iridium, as Terry's eyesight and legs were failing him, his sound, breath control and attack seemed beyond the reach of time.
In 2008 Terry retired from performing, ending a career that spanned more than 60 years. His sound and phrasing were impossible to mistake for anyone else's. It's a kind of exclusivity shared by only a few trumpet players — Armstrong certainly, Ruby Braff and perhaps Edison. One could add Bix Beiderbecke, Gillespie and Davis (who is said to have studied Terry), of course, but they all became "schools" unto themselves and spawned many imitators and talented disciples. Terry owned his style so completely and protected it with such an impenetrable and subtle virtuosity that no one was capable of infringing on his territory.
"He taught so many cats," Wynton Marsalis told me in Chicago just a week before Terry's death. "Everybody's been touched by him because he took his time with everybody. He carried the feeling of [jazz] with him, so when you were around him, you were around the feeling. He didn't have to explain a lot. He just had to be himself. I've known him since I was 14. He's the first person I heard who really was playing. It was the mid-'70's. Everybody was playing funk tunes. Miles was playing rock and funk, so nobody was playing jazz. But Clark Terry was playing. And no one played like CT."
Terry was so good, so unerring, for so long, that he suffered the penalties of perfection. He was taken for granted — probably because he was never caught climbing out of a cracked note, a clumsy turn of phrase or an indifferent 12 bars. His performances were a fizz of wit and urbanity, never anguish or indecision. He made it all look so easy.
If he was underestimated, the last several years saw a rush to correct the record. He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1991. Readers elected him to the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 2000. The Recording Academy recognized his lifetime achievement four years ago. He even scored a hometown star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Virtuosity means different things to different people. Musicians worship it when they encounter it because they understand its elusive mystery and endless process. But critics sometimes distrust it as a distraction, suspicious that a veneer of well-practiced skill may be camouflaging an emotional or creative apathy. Consistency may be admirable, but inconsistency often makes a better story. Terry's surprises were subtle and came in oblique miniatures, easy to overlook and often undervalued. He was just so consistently brilliant, the wonders he wrought were hidden in their familiarity.
But musicians never overlooked him. One of the earliest to spot him was trumpeter Charlie Shavers, who had heard him playing in the late '40s with the George Hudson band, a regional orchestra in St. Louis, where Terry was born on Dec. 14, 1920. As musicians do, Shavers spread the word. While making A Song Is Born for Samuel Goldwyn in 1947, bandleader Charlie Barnet asked Shavers if he knew a good jazz trumpet player. He immediately recommended Terry, who had become so captivated by the trumpet as a 10-year-old that he made one of his own from a section of hose and a funnel.
Terry was not a player whose style grew and evolved in public view over the years. He hit the Barnet band fully formed and singularly distinct, becoming an instant soloist in a brass section that also included Jimmy Nottingham and a young Doc Severinsen.
"To have an opportunity at age 21 to work with guys like that was inspirational," Severinsen recalled after Terry's death. "Clark was like my big brother. Anything he played, I was going to try to play it, too. I was pretty well-trained, but I simply could not do some of the things he did. He could play these long lines, for instance, because he learned to take in air as he would play — circular breathing. Yet, Clark never used it in a way that wasn't good for the song. It was never a stunt. He was just a great trumpeter, period. He had a picture-perfect embouchure, which is why he was able to play as long as he wanted to."
On Terry's first record date with Barnet in September 1947, the trumpeter's arrangement of "Sleep" was already in the book, showcasing his long, glancing phrases and sudden flame-throwing dynamics. So was his wit. He tossed off casual references to Shavers and even Harry James. On "Budandy," his triple-tongue pirouettes contrasted sharply with Barnet's swaggering masculinity. But the best, most dazzling Terry work from the Barnet band was captured on its December 1947 Town Hall Jazz Concert, released by Columbia in the 1950's.
Terry's singing — he called it, more accurately, "mumbles" — was an explicit extension of his trumpet phrasing, a kind of rat-a-tat scat of double-talk: bubbling yet precise, with a bottled-up restraint that seemed itching to escape. Back then, his singing was less mumbles and more straight bebop. It was a small sideshow among his talents that Barnet never used on a commercial record and remained something of a secret until it became familiar to audiences via The Tonight Show in the 1960's. Terry's vocals didn't appear on a record until Oscar Peterson + One, released by Mercury in 1964. That album included a few Terry compositions, including "Mumbles."
Shortly after the 1947 Town Hall concert, Terry left Barnet for Count Basie's band. The timing could hardly have been worse. James Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, called a strike against the record companies, shutting down the entire industry through 1948. Bookings fell off, and one famous band after another shut down.
Terry stayed with Basie through 1949, but the records from the period are not memorable. One exception is "Normania" (a.k.a. "Blee Blop Blues") from Basie's final RCA session in August 1949. Terry etches a stunning solo, crowded with a dry pointillist precision that had no precedent in the Basie book. It was a kind of prickly virtuosity jazz had never encountered — fluid, contained and full of Haydenesque detail. But the band was in its final months and broke up on Jan. 8, 1950. For Terry, though, it would only be a brief layoff. He was back in a month, this time in a Basie combo that included clarinetist Buddy DeFranco.
It was a transitional interlude. Terry marked his time as Basie struggled to rebuild. His trumpet was the backbone of the octet, but he soloed rarely on the few sides it made for Columbia in 1950-'51. He remained with Basie through the beginnings of the New Testament band in the spring and summer of 1951. Then, Duke Ellington beckoned.
Terry joined Ellington on Nov. 11,1951. It had been a period of swift changes and recalibrations for the band. Alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges and drummer Sonny Greer had departed in February, taking with them two of the primary spectrums of the bands color scheme. Ellington might have tried a patch job. Instead, he bet on a reformation. Between March and November 1951, Terry and drummer Louie Bellson became a wind of modernity sweeping through the band.
Ellington presented Terry with what would be the first magnum opus of his career, a concert-size version of "Perdido," a piece that had been in the book since 1941. Terry polished it to a high gloss, making it a full-dress, eight-minute summary of his entire work Triple-tongued arcs flared like geysers, then leveled off, spreading into long, cool landscapes that rolled evenly across half a chorus without a breath. When he twisted a pitch or broke composure with a sudden spritz of schmaltz, it was always with a sardonic wink His playing flexed and bristled with an unforced passion wrapped in a strict sense of form and musical intelligence.
"Perdido" was recorded in July 1952, just in time for Columbia to add it to what would become Ellington’s first landmark album of the long-play era, Ellington Uptown. The band had stumbled into a new peak period, invigorated by Terry's crackling audacity and Bellson's barreling drive. For Terry, "Perdido" and Ellington Uptown were a career-making twosome that put him in the big time. But just as that album was released, the band moved to Capitol for an indifferent two-year period during which it was eclipsed by the sensational renaissance of Count Basie.
Then came the legendary performance at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival (and subsequent concert album Ellington At Newport). Suddenly Ellington was back on top and on the cover of Time magazine. For the next three years, Terry would play to the largest audiences of his career and develop a fan base of his own. He became a fixture in a band of extraordinary fixtures: Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Juan Tizol, Ray Nance, Britt Woodman, Harry Carney and Ellington himself.
After the 1956 Newport fest, Ellington grew more ambitious, and Terry was well represented in the flow of new works. He became one of the first musicians to bring the flugelhorn into the jazz scene with "Juniflip" (from Newport 1958). There were wonderful odds and ends, among them "Spacemen" (from The Cosmic Scene) and "Happy Anatomy" from his final Ellington project, Anatomy Of A Murder. Best remembered may be "Lady Mac" and "Up And Down, Up And Down" from 1957's Such Sweet Thunder.
As Terry rose on the Ellington tide, other opportunities opened. He moonlighted on sessions with Clifford Brown, Maynard Ferguson, Dinah Washington and Horace Silver on EmArcy Records. He joined Thelonious Monk for the landmark 1957 album Brilliant Corners (Riverside). Monk returned the courtesy, appearing on Terry's In Orbit (1958). And Hodges used him often on his Ellingtonian excursions on Verve.
Late in 1959 Terry left Ellington, worked on and off with Quincy Jones, then Gerry Mulligan and Bob Brookmeyer. But Terry's real quest was to get off the road and stay in New York The chance came in 1960 when the major networks, after years of pressure, finally began to integrate their staff orchestras. Terry became the first African American musician to join the NBC staff.
He may have settled down a bit, but the 1960’s would become his most productive decade. Nearly half the jazz recordings of his career would be done during that time.
It was also the decade in which Terry became widely known beyond the jazz world. When Johnny Carson took over The Tonight Show in October 1962, conductor Skitch Henderson brought Terry into the band, where he proved a natural showman with his "mumbles" scat singing. A regular feature of the show became "stump the band," in which Carson would invite audience members to make offbeat tune requests. No request was too obscure for Terry, who would raise his hand. "I think Clark has it," Carson would say. Terry would then mumble a made-up scat line as the other musicians nodded in mock recognition. He became the most famous sideman in America's most famous jazz band.
When The Tonight Show moved to Los Angeles in 1972, Terry remained in New York and became increasingly active with younger musicians through a growing network of jazz educators, often recording with various student bands. He toured with a big band of his own periodically, playing festivals, cruises and other venues. (Vanguard released Clark Terry's Big B-a-d Band Live At The Wichita Jazz Festival 1974).
Terry's most consistent recorded output through the '70s and '80s was on Pablo, where the label's famous founder, Norman Granz, regularly featured him with Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson and on his own leader projects. He recorded on smaller labels with endless pick-up groups as he traveled the world. But alongside the playful spirit and adroit craft lived a powerful blues player as well, never more so than on Abbey Lincoln's 1990 album, The World Is Falling Down.
On the bandstand, Terry combined his formidable instrumental skills with a strong sense of showmanship. "Being able to entertain is very important," he said in a June 1996 DownBeat cover story. "The real jazz fans may think that’s commercial — playing the horn upside-down or working with both horns at once. But the idea of playing music to an audience is to present it so they'll enjoy it. If you don't want to do that, you may as well rent a studio and play there. I try to pass on to young players the importance of remembering that when you're onstage, you're entertaining. Playing jazz is not heart surgery. You're there to vent your feelings and have fun. We don't work our instruments. We play them."
Among Terry's last sessions were Friendship (a collaboration with drummer Max Roach) and the Porgy and Bess project in 2003 with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra.
Terry also had an important impact as a pioneering jazz educator. In addition to conducting clinics and workshops, he had a long stint as an adjunct professor at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. He donated instruments, correspondence, print music and memorabilia to the university in 2004.
Clark Terry lived along life — with a coda that gave his many friends time to say their goodbyes. Some are movingly captured in Keep On Keepin On. But one special goodbye came last December. The entire Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra diverted from its tour route and played a birthday concert at Terry's hospital bedside. "We didn't want to stop," Marsalis later wrote on his Facebook page, "but it was time for all of us to go. But before that somber moment, we gathered around the bed and played 'Happy Birthday for him. When he went to blow out the candles, he broke down. Many of us joined him. We all said goodbye and he once again recognized each individual with a touch and some kind words.... And then it was that time. What is deeper than respect and love? That's what we felt: veneration."
On Feb. 23, bassist Christian McBride posted a tribute on his Facebook page in which he reflected on Terry's influence: "Every musician in the world who ever met Clark Terry is a better musician and person because of it. He now belongs to the ages." DB
Terry was born to Clark Virgil Terry Sr. and Mary Terry in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 14, 1920.[1][2] He attended Vashon High School and began his professional career in the early 1940s, playing in local clubs. He served as a bandsman in the United States Navy during World War II. His first instrument was valve trombone.[4]
Blending
the St. Louis tone with contemporary styles, Terry's years with Basie
and Ellington (who secretly recruited Terry away from Basie)[5]
in the late 1940s and 1950s established his prominence. During his
period with Ellington, he took part in many of the composer's suites and
acquired a reputation for his wide range of styles (from swing to hard bop), technical proficiency, and good humor. Terry influenced musicians including Miles Davis and Quincy Jones,
both of whom acknowledged Terry's influence during the early stages of
their careers. Terry had informally taught Davis while they were still
in St Louis,[6] and Jones during Terry's frequent visits to Seattle with the Count Basie Sextet.[7] After leaving Ellington in 1959, Clark's international recognition soared when he accepted an offer from the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to become a staff musician. He appeared for ten years on The Tonight Show as a member of the Tonight Show Band until 1972, first led by Skitch Henderson and later by Doc Severinsen, where his unique "mumbling" scat singing led to a hit with "Mumbles".[8]
Terry was the first African American to become a regular in a band on a
major US television network. He said later: "We had to be models,
because I knew we were in a test.... We couldn't have a speck on our
trousers. We couldn't have a wrinkle in the clothes. We couldn't have a
dirty shirt."[9] Terry continued to play with musicians such as trombonist J. J. Johnson and pianist Oscar Peterson,[10] and led a group with valve-trombonist Bob Brookmeyer that achieved some success in the early 1960s. In February 1965, Brookmeyer and Terry appeared on BBC2's Jazz 625.[11] and in 1967, presented by Norman Granz, he was recorded at Poplar Town Hall, in the BBC series Jazz at the Philharmonic, alongside James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Bob Cranshaw, Louie Bellson and T-Bone Walker.[12] In the 1970s, Terry concentrated increasingly on the flugelhorn,
which he played with a full, ringing tone. In addition to his studio
work and teaching at jazz workshops, Terry toured regularly in the 1980s
with small groups (including Peterson's) and performed as the leader of
his Big B-A-D Band (formed about 1970). After financial difficulties
forced him to break up the Big B-A-D Band, he performed with bands such
as the Unifour Jazz Ensemble. His humor and command of jazz trumpet
styles are apparent in his "dialogues" with himself, on different
instruments or on the same instrument, muted and unmuted.
From the 1970s through the 1990s, Terry performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, and Lincoln Center, toured with the Newport Jazz All Stars and Jazz at the Philharmonic, and was featured with Skitch Henderson's New York Pops Orchestra. In 1998, Terry recorded George Gershwin's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" for the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Red Hot + Rhapsody, a tribute to George Gershwin, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease.
In November 1980, he was a headliner along with Anita O'Day, Lionel Hampton and Ramsey Lewis
during the opening two-week ceremony performances celebrating the
short-lived resurgence of the Blue Note Lounge at the Marriott O'Hare
Hotel near Chicago.
Prompted early in his career by Billy Taylor, Clark and Milt Hinton
bought instruments for and gave instruction to young hopefuls, which
planted the seed that became Jazz Mobile in Harlem. This venture tugged
at Terry's greatest love: involving youth in the perpetuation of jazz.
From 2000 onwards, he hosted Clark Terry Jazz Festivals on land and sea,
held his own jazz camps, and appeared in more than fifty jazz festivals
on six continents. Terry composed more than two hundred jazz songs and
performed for eight U.S. Presidents.[13] He also had several recordings with major groups including the London Symphony Orchestra,
the Dutch Metropole Orchestra, and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, hundreds
of high school and college ensembles, his own duos, trios, quartets,
quintets, sextets, octets, and two big bands: Clark Terry's Big Bad Band
and Clark Terry's Young Titans of Jazz.
In February 2004, Terry guest starred as himself, on Little Bill, a children's television series. Terry was a resident of Bayside, Queens, and Corona, Queens, New York, later moving to Haworth, New Jersey, and then Pine Bluff, Arkansas.[14][15] His autobiography was published in 2011.[3]Taylor Ho Bynum wrote in The New Yorker
that it "captures his gift for storytelling and his wry humor,
especially in chronicling his early years on the road, with struggles
through segregation and gigs in juke joints and carnivals, all while
developing one of most distinctive improvisational voices in music
history."[16] According to his own website Terry was "one of the most recorded
jazz artists in history and had performed for eight American
Presidents."[17] In April 2014, the documentary Keep on Keepin' On, followed Terry over four years, to document his mentorship of the 23-year-old blind piano prodigy Justin Kauflin, as the Kauflin prepared to compete in an elite, international competition.[18] In December 2014 the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and Cécile McLorin Salvant
visited Terry, who had celebrated his 94th birthday on December 14, at
the Jefferson Regional Medical Center. A lively rendition of "Happy
Birthday" was played.[19]
On February 13, 2015, it was announced that Terry had entered hospice care to manage his advanced diabetes.[20] He died on February 21, 2015.[21][22] Writing in The New York Times,
Peter Keepnews said Terry "was acclaimed for his impeccable
musicianship, loved for his playful spirit and respected for his
adaptability. Although his sound on both trumpet and the rounder-toned
flugelhorn (which he helped popularize as a jazz instrument) was highly
personal and easily identifiable, he managed to fit it snugly into a
wide range of musical contexts."[23] Writing in UK's The Daily Telegraph,
Martin Chilton said: "Terry was a music educator and had a deep and
lasting influence on the course of jazz. Terry became a mentor to
generations of jazz players, including Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis and
composer-arranger Quincy Jones."[9] Interviewing Terry in 2005, fellow jazz trumpeter Scotty Barnhart
said he was "... one of the most incredibly versatile musicians to ever
live ... a jazz trumpet master that played with the greatest names in
the history of the music ..."[24] Southeast Missouri State University
hosts the Clark Terry/Phi Mu Alpha Jazz Festival, an annual tribute to
the musician. The festival began in 1998, and has grown in size every
year. The festival showcases outstanding student musicians and guest
artists at the university's River Campus.[25][26] The University of New Hampshire hosts the Clark Terry Jazz Festival every year; it showcases middle- and high-school jazz musicians from all over New England.[27] On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Clark Terry among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.[28]
Awards and honors
Terry performing with the Great Lakes Navy Band Jazz Ensemble
Berman, Eleanor, "The jazz of Queens encompasses music royalty", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
January 1, 2006. Accessed October 1, 2009. "When the trolley tour
proceeds, Mr. Knight points out the nearby Dorie Miller Houses, a co-op
apartment complex in Corona where Clark Terry and Cannonball and Nat
Adderley lived and where saxophonist Jimmy Heath still resides."
Barnhart, Scotty (2005). The World of Jazz Trumpet: A Comprehensive History & Practical Philosophy. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN978-0634095276. Chapter 3: Clark Terry, pp. 91-96.
I’ve always been a firm believer that whatever type of person you are, that’s the kind of music you’re gonna’ produce.
In a time where countless up-and-coming young jazz musicians
are constantly critiqued for the lack of substance beyond technical
prowess in their playing, Clark Terry, one of the most unique and
personal voices in jazz, offers a refreshing outlook on what is missing
in the passing on of this musical tradition. With a resume that reads
like a jazz history textbook, he has, to name only a few moments of his
career, been a member of both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands,
led a group with Bob Brookmeyer, recorded a timeless album with Oscar
Peterson, and popularized the flugelhorn as a legitimate instrument on
the jazz scene. While a life such as this would be fulfilling to any
jazz enthusiast, Terry continues his musical endeavors as an active
participant in jazz education. His passion for passing on this music is
unsurpassed and his overall love of this music can be heard in every
note he plays.
FREIMAN:
I thought we’d start off talking
about some of the recordings that you’ve done. One of my favorites is
your duet with Red Mitchell, Jive at Five. Whose idea was it to do a
bass/trumpet duet album?
TERRY:
Well, Red and I were always good buddies and he used to like to
keep in touch with the recording companies and he’d always had a big
hookup in his home, you know? So, we did a couple of things at his home
and then we played a few gigs as a result of the record we did at his
home, and we were offered a couple of gigs. So we enjoyed doing the duo
thing together cause sometimes he would play piano and sometimes, most
of the time, the bass. So, I always had great respect for him and he…I
love the way he plays and, well, I guess you might say we have ourselves
a mutual admiration.
FREIMAN:
And what about your work with the
Oscar Peterson trio? Your style and Oscar’s are both so rooted in the
blues that the two of you seem like a perfect fit.
TERRY:
Yeah, well we did uh…a couple years ago now…we had finished the
date completely with all the music, and there was a lot of time left
because, you know, when you record with Oscar you do it in, and, uh,
they always say, you do it down and get em rollin’, cause he doesn’t
like to rehash things, you know. So, uh, we had finished the date
completely and, uh, I said, “Well since we have all this time I’d like to do a little fun thing just to have at my home for laughs.” So he says, “OK, what is it?”
So I said, “I’d like to play, uh, sing some blues, and I’d like to sing
it like a lot of the old timers used to sound when they were singin’
the blues in my hometown in St. Louis. There were several places…bars,
or whatever you want to call them, uh, which housed a piano which was
strictly laminated to withstand the weight of several stands of beer.
So, if you bought the piano player a beer, which was part of his salary,
then he’d play for you to sing, no matter how horrible you might have
sounded. To uh…that’s why, uh…you might decide you want to sing about
your breakfast say (singing) “Oh eggs!…” after the first little, uh,
grammar was spoken, all the rest was totally unintelligible and kind of
ignorant-like. So, uh, but it didn’t matter because the food…I mean the
foot pattin’, the sawdust on the floor was bouncin’, fingers poppin’ and
as Ellington would say, “The earlobe jilting”, explained that all the
fun and merriment that was exuding from the room was there and that was
all that mattered. What you…how you sing about whatever you were singin’
about didn’t matter at all. So that was my put on of the old blues
singers. So I…I started it and Oscar, after about two to three minutes,
Oscar was layin’ on the floor. So he said, “Wait a minute. We’ll put
this in the album.” I go, “Well this won’t have anything to do there.” He said, “We’ll put it in the album.” I said, “Well, I got a slow version, too.” He said, “We’ll put that in too.” That was the incoherent…that was Mumbles, the incoherent blues.
FREIMAN:
Recorded on the Oscar Peterson Trio
Plus One. That’s one of my favorite albums you’ve done because of that
similarity in your and Oscar’s style.
TERRY:
Oh, thank you. OP’s one of my favorite people and of course my favorite pianist. His daughter’s my godchild, you know?
FREIMAN:
Oh really? I didn’t know that…that’s really nice. I had the privilege of seeing him perform here in Detroit about a month ago.
TERRY:
Oh, you saw him?
FREIMAN:
Yeah, yeah, he was here with his
group about a month ago or so. It was great. It’s a little sad because
of his stroke, but his right hand is still all over the place.
TERRY:
Yeah. Barry Harris sent him an email that said: “Now that you’re handicapped, uh, you’re almost as normal a piano player as the rest of us.”
FREIMAN:
Yeah, right. It gives everyone else a chance to catch up, right? I wanted to talk a little bit about
jobs that you’ve done, bands that you’ve played with. You often describe
your time with the Ellington band as the time when you “attended the
University of Ellingtonia…”
TERRY:
That’s right.
FREIMAN:
And the period with the Count Basie
band was your “prep school in preparation for enrollment at the
University of Ellington.” What exactly was Basie preparing you for, and
how did it prepare you?
TERRY:
Well, Basie was the king of, uh, tempo and utilization of space
and time. We teach a lot of kids this in their playing, you know, to
learn how to use space, and if you’ve got a good rhythm section, you use
it. So you might just say (singing), “Bamp” and let the rhythm section go, “Bam-ba-lo-ba-boo-bamp”
and use, use all that space. And after, you know, having been around
Basie for so long, you know, he knew so much about tempos and so forth,
uh, so it was just instilled in you, you know. One of the things that
explains about how endowed he was about things of that sort, uh, one of
the arrangers, Neil Hefti, brought in an arrangement one time and he
passed it out and the band played it, and, uh, Basie, he looked at Basie
and he said, “What do you think chief?” And Basie shook his head negatively. He said, “What’s wrong with it? You don’t like the arrangement?” Basie says, “Its OK.” He says, “Well, what’s the problem?” He says, “Tempo.” So the tempo, incidentally, was like this (singing and clapping fast tempo). Can you hear that tempo?
FREIMAN:
Yes.
TERRY:
So Basie says, “Wrong tempo.” So he says, “What do you think it should be?” He says right here (sings and claps much slower tempo). Do you know what the tune was?
FREIMAN:
What’s that?
TERRY:
(Singing)
FREIMAN:
Li’l Darlin’.
TERRY:
When Neil brought it in it was (singing Little Darlin’ at much faster tempo).
FREIMAN:
And Basie just made it about ten times harder to play.
TERRY:
That’s right. Then, of course, graduating up to the University of
Ellingtonia. Ellington was far more endowed with, you know, theory and
harmony and counterpoint, etc., than Basie was. Basie just had the other
way, but Duke had the book knowledge, the learning. And, of course, he
was the type of, uh, elegant person who would…could be and was at home
with, uh, heads of states, kings, queens, and…he could be at home with
them and still be elegant. And, uh, just from having been in that band
and been around Ellington for so many years, uh, so many things just
rubbed off on you that you wouldn’t even be aware of until the time came
when you needed em. And when I became a bandleader, many times I would
question, “What should I do here?” and I’d push a button and
the answer would come from Ellington. Uh, a ways and means of
establishing a rapport between audiences and the bandstand, you know,
choosing material, figuring…deciding on tempos, and deciding on what
kind of audiences you’re going to be playing for. So, all these things
come naturally to you when you’ve been around Ellington for a while.
FREIMAN:
And what about your work with Bob
Brookmeyer? I’ve heard you portray great admiration for him, and in the
same breath you’re quick to mention that you both played unusual
instruments at the time, him the valve trombone, you the flugelhorn. Did
this admiration stem from this shared unique quality in terms of
instrument choice?
TERRY:
Yeah, well, my first instrument in school was the—they didn’t have any trumpets, so the teachers told me, “Here,
take this thing. It’s bigger than that—than the trumpet—it’s louder and
you can make more noise with it and it has the same fingerings, so take
it and get the hell out of here.” I took the valve trombone but I
never really wanted to play it, I wanted to play the trumpet. So I stuck
with that until I got—something became available in the next class, you
know, at graduation. So, when Brookmeyer and I got together we were
really a team of, uh, admiration society, you know, and I loved the way
he plays and he loved the way I played, so we put together a group but,
uh, the Half Note downtown and here in New York and, uh, we made a few
albums and I still think a couple of the swingingest albums out there.
FREIMAN:
I would agree. Tell me about your
background in playing. You’ve mentioned the profound effect that Louis
Armstrong had on your playing and also Lester Young, which I thought was
interesting…
TERRY:
Yeah, I used to love the way Prez played…a lot of the things that
we try to teach kids today, uh, uh, moans and, uh, flips and, uh, and
sort of the literature that we’ve had to come to on our own because you
can’t always use, uh, uh, you know, the Italian dictionary of music like
we use in legitimate music. Largo, and uh, you know, uh, andante and,
uh, you know, all the terminology that we use and you won’t dare say to a
person on the bandstand, “Lets play some largo blues.”
A lot of terminology really definitely explains what type, what tempo
and so forth of the blues you’re gonna’ get involved in. So, uh, this
was, uh…the one thing we try to teach the kids how to do. And Prez was
one of the people who originated a lot of these things like
(demonstrates tonguing techniques), and they’re a very, very important
ingredient in the colorations of sound in jazz. So, uh, that’s why I,
uh, that’s why I love Prez so much.
FREIMAN:
And then from Louis Armstrong you learned phrasing and things of that sort?
TERRY:
Yeah, well Louis Armstrong was the king, and I used to…I still
tell students many times, uh, sometimes they have a tendency to…the
super hip ones, you know…have a tendency to think of music that was
original, as old time stuff, and they prefer the newer stuff. So I tell
them, I say, “OK, Louis Armstrong was one of the people who knew
nothing about theory, harmony, and counterpoint, any of that sort but if
you listen to any of his records and you find me one on which he played
a wrong note, I’ll pay you a hundred dollars.”
I haven’t paid one yet.
FREIMAN:
It’s like that old saying that no one’s ever played anything that Louis Armstrong didn’t play first.
TERRY:
That’s right. Johnny Hodges used to always say, whenever somebody thinks he’s playing something new, he’d say, “Well that ain’t new, that’s been in the kitchen for years.” It came out of the kitchen.
FREIMAN:
It’s a humbling thought.
TERRY:
Yeah. And it’s true.
FREIMAN:
In books that I’ve read, your
playing is often described as uncategorizable. I have a quote that says,
“During his eight years with Ellington, Terry developed from a
Dizzy-influenced bebopper into an uncategorizable soloist with his own
distinctive sound.” (Trumpet Kings, Scott Yanow) What do you think, as
far as what practice techniques you used growing up, or who you were
listening to, was responsible for your development of such a personal
voice?
TERRY:
Well, uh, so often critics have a way of, uh…their version of what
happened and what’s going on. But, uh, Dizzy and I were pretty close to
the same age and we were pretty much into our own thing. Of course,
when Bird came along and created this new approach and Dizzy of course
was his, uh, sidekick, all of the music kind of went in that direction,
you know. So if you rebelled, you’d be left standing on the corner by
yourself. But, uh, I’ve always been a firm believer that whatever type
of person you are, that’s the kind of music you’re gonna’ produce. You
find, uh, hardball, aggressive, uh…people, they play like that. People
who are endowed with a little bit of humor, they play with a little bit
of humor. People who are very legitimately strict, they play a little
bit that way. I once heard a guy refer to one of the jazz players as a
person who reminded him of a queer person straightening up his dresser.
FREIMAN:
That’s a new thought. During your
development, you used to practice with a piece of felt over your horn
and practice out of clarinet books?
TERRY:
Yeah, I used to love to play…the trumpet books didn’t have
interesting little moving enough lines so I found the clarinet books you
could always play (sings moving eighth note line), and I used to love
the sound of, uh…in order to muffle the sound a little bit to keep it
from being too loud. A lot of times I would practice in the Navy in the
shower and a lot of times…sometimes in the areas where people were
holding conversations, but they wouldn’t mind because I’d muffle it with
a little felt or take an old hat and put a slit in the middle and hang
it over the bell of the horn, it kind of mellowed it a little bit. And I
think I got this idea from the fact that years ago in the Jimmie
Lunceford band, all the people, uh, all the trumpet players used to play
flugelhorns. And so at first I’m thinking this was the basic sound I
had in mind all the time so I reached back and when I got with the
Selmer company, I had Keith Eckerd to, uh, put together some, uh, pieces
of tubing that he had around and we actually put together the first
flugelhorn that Selmer produced. I sent it back and they put it together
technically and gold plated it and sent it back to me. That was in 1957
in November and we were doing a date with Billy Taylor in Chicago and
Billy was using the old Ellington band, except Ellington, and, uh,
that’s how it came about. I took it on the date, he said, “Why don’t you play it on the date?” I said, “I intend to.”
Of course, that night we were working at the Blue Note with Ellington.
So I took it to work that night and whipped it out and played a little
bit and Duke said, “Let’s keep that in.”
FREIMAN:
Then he wrote Juniflip on the Flugelhorn’, his first piece for you.
TERRY:
That’s right, Juniflip on the Flugelhorn’, right.
FREIMAN:
Speaking of Selmer, you recorded an
album, It’s What’s Happenin’, and on it you used an electric trumpet
which Selmer made for you.
TERRY:
Yeah, I used the…
FREIMAN:
And you regret doing that…you thought of it as a gimmick?
TERRY:
Yeah, I never…I never thought it was…it was a good thing because
any kid can stick the plug in before he even realized he did not find
the center of his tone, he had no individuality there, so everything
sounds electric.
FREIMAN:
Is that your view on all electronic music? Do you see it as a gimmick?
TERRY:
Not necessarily all of it but, uh, brass instruments, trumpet in
particular, it gets a little… out of hand, you know, no individuality
there, it’s just the (makes buzzing noise), just like any other
electrical sound. You push a button, you know.
FREIMAN:
How do you feel about modern jazz and its use of electronics? Do you feel it’s a positive step or a negative one?
TERRY:
Well, I feel that everybody’s entitled to whatever they want to
give a whirl at. I think there’s a place for everything. I remember even
years ago they used to, in the dance halls, they used to turn on the
little ball in the center of the floor with the reflectors on it, the
rotating ball, they used to call it the waltz ball, it was time to
waltz. And when they turned off the waltz ball, there was no more
waltzing. So you can’t have the same thing going on all the time anyhow,
so its nice to have different categories and different areas to get
into.
FREIMAN:
How about as far as education?
You’re pretty active on the jazz education in schools scene right now. I
always joke around with Mel Wanzo and I tell him that I think I was
born at the wrong time because he tells me stories about back in the day
when there were jam sessions constantly…
TERRY:
Oh yes.
FREIMAN:
Do you think that the lack of this
environment of jam sessions and learning on the job, is affecting the
music that’s being produced from the younger musicians today?
TERRY:
Well, I think it’s just one of the things that’s gravely missing
in the younger musicians today is they don’t learn to use their
individuality, uh, to really get involved in giving in to their
feelings, you know. Everything is more or less technical, you know. In
the old days when the old timers got involved, they knew nothing about
theory, or harmony, or counterpart, but they knew how to listen to…they
used their ears a lot. They used to play the melody, and the melody
thereafter they uh… how the term…improvisation was before this was
born…used to call it “get off” which simply means you play the melody
the first time, the second time you extempoariously move away from the
melody, using the melody as a guideline, so you “get off” the melody. It
was called “get off”. Yeah.
FREIMAN:
And it seems students today are just
the opposite, it’s all theory and harmony and not enough just opening
up your ears and listening.
TERRY:
Absolutely. Yeah.
FREIMAN:
As far as the schools themselves go, what do you see as being the most critical aspect that’s being left out in jazz education?
TERRY:
Getting the people to use their ears, to listen, to give in to
their feeling, what we were just speaking about. I think there’s so
many… well, one of the problems is that, a young person goes to school,
he graduates, he’s involved in music. He wants to teach. He gets a
degree. He gets another degree. And by this time he’s married, he’s
got…he’s got a family. He’s got to support that family, so he gets a job
teaching. He’s never been on the road, he’s never gotten that old road
hump in his back, he doesn’t know about the hardships of the road, the
rigors of traveling, etc. He doesn’t know how to create and give in to
his feelings and make ends meet. He’s in college teaching kids that are
in high school, teaching kids how to do what he never did do. But he
learned how to teach it. So that’s one of the things, that uh, you got
teachers who can…can explain to a student the square root of a Bb chord
but he can’t play a blues chorus. That’s one of the problems.
FREIMAN:
What was it like for you growing up
in terms of how you learned? Did you transcribe all the solos you heard
Louie Armstrong play?
TERRY:
Yeah, we had a system that I still go by that’ll…imitation,
assimilation, and then innovation. Then you wish them to copy in order
to find out what it was all about. Then the second point you say, “I
wonder why he made a right turn there, I thought he was gonna’ make a
left turn.” Then you’re using your imagination. So the approach is very
good today. We used to have to learn by asking questions, the old
timers, you know, all the guys who had been established before, and one
of the hazardous things was they used to think that the younger people
were become…gonna’ become a threat to their livelihood and security, you
know. They’d tell you the wrong answer. This old timer told me once, I
asked him how to improve my tone in the lower register, he said, “Oh
son, you got a mirror at home?” I said, “Yes sir.” He said, “Well, you
sit in that chair, you sit back in the chair with your feet flat on the
floor?” I said. “Yes sir.” “Now that sounds great. And do you leave your
arms at the point where you don’t hamper your air column?” I said, “Ooh
that’s sounds great.” “Sit back and you hold your embouchure in the
proper fashion.” And all this sounded good. He said, “And while you’re
lookin’ in that mirror you grit your teeth and wiggle your left ear. Not
the right ear! The left ear!” All that, of course, was garbage to throw
you all off. Then they’d go home and get on the phone and say, “Well,
I’m gonna’ ruin another one of them whipper-snappers.”
FREIMAN:
Yeah right, one less to worry about.
TERRY:
Yeah.
FREIMAN:
Well, even though young people today
don’t have the scene you did, it does seem that people of your stature
who have been through all this are very willing to share their
experiences in order to keep the music alive. Back then, that was the
heyday of the music when the thought wasn’t really there as much that we
need to keep this music going, because it was the popular music. Now
that threat is here that this could die out, so it seems more urgent
that it’s passed on.
TERRY:
It is urgent. This is a critical situation. Another thing is that
they’re trying to change the history a bit too, if you know what I mean.
FREIMAN:
They’re trying to change the history?
TERRY:
Change the history, yeah. Rewriting the history books. For
instance, you might find, as far as the heritage is concerned, you’ll
find some people who are teaching maybe that Bix Biederbeck taught Louis
Armstrong how to play. Things of that sort, you know. And there’s a lot
of untruths that are being told. Which are concocted on spur of the
moments for political reasons, you know. Racial reasons, you know. We
don’t have to discuss that, but you know what I’m talking about.
FREIMAN:
Well, that leads me to my last question, do we have any hope of you putting out an autobiography?
TERRY:
Oh, I got it almost finished. Yeah, As a matter of fact January
fourth to the tenth or the fourteenth, whatever it is, uh we’ve blocked
out the whole period because we’ve been working on this book for ten
years. I had four other people who were doing it and…lets see, two…three
of them passed away and one of them had the bright idea that he was
going to do a bio instead of an autobio. And he wanted to write it his
way, and, uh, that was Dempsey Travis in Chicago. He’s written a lot of
good jazz books. But when he found out that I was not gonna’ give him
all this information for a bio, I said you could do a bio on your own.
Anybody could write what they want about anybody else if they want. But
if its gonna’ be my story, let it be my story, so we fell out. So my
wife just took it over. And, uh, we’ve been working on it for ten years.
FREIMAN:
And it’s coming out in January?
TERRY:
We got it almost…we got four hundred and fifty something pages. So
we just need to tie up the ends. She just got to…well I know she’s
gonna’ have to shorten it up and put…tie up the ends from when I come
out of the Tonight Show and into, to other scenes, you know. And when I
got into the jazz education scene. But all the other stuff is there.
It’s all in there.
FREIMAN:
Can you tell me the name of it or is that being held under wraps?
TERRY:
Well, nobody knows yet. We’ve been kick in around all sorts of names.
FREIMAN:
Great, well sign me up, I’ll be the first in line to buy one.
TERRY:
Oh OK. I got to warn you, its gonna’ be a little provocative.
FREIMAN:
Uh oh. That’s OK. If I could make it through Miles’ autobiography, I think I can take it.
THE MUSIC OF CLARK TERRY: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH CLARK TERRY:
Kofi Natambu, editor of and contributor to Sound Projections, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He has written extensively about music as a critic and historian for many publications, including the Black Scholar, Downbeat, Solid Ground: A New World Journal, Detroit Metro Times, KONCH, the Panopticon Review,Black Renaissance Noire, the Village Voice, the City Sun (NYC), the Poetry Project Newsletter (NYC), and the African American Review. He is the author of a biography Malcolm X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: The Melody Never Stops (Past Tents Press) and Intervals (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of Solid Ground: A New World Journal, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology Nostalgia for the Present (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
Clark Terry 
Clark
Terry was positively a giant, one of the most joyful forces in jazz. A
huge irreplaceable void has been left in the jazz community since his
recent passing at the age of 94 on February 21, 2015. His sense of
humor, slippery phrasing, signature plunger muted trumpet and flugelhorn
playing will always live on. Born in St. Louis Missouri on December 14,
1920 his career came to a fruitful start through the bands of greats
such as alto saxophonist and vocalist Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Charlie
Barnet, and Charlie Ventura to name a few. In 1948, he joined Count Basie’s
band, and in one his most notable associations, Duke Ellington where he
remained from 1951-1958. Terry was also instrumental in pioneering the
use of the flugelhorn in jazz, along with Freddie Hubbard and Chuck
Mangione as the horn’s most famous exponents. 
Trumpeter Clark Terry, who was born December 14, 1920, in St. Louis, Missouri, was widely known for his role in the Tonight Show Band in
the ’60s and ’70s (he was the band’s first black member), as well as
for his longtime associations with bandleaders Count Basie and Duke
Ellington. A brilliant improviser with boundless technical facility,
Terry was also famous for his humorous antics on the bandstand,
including playing his trumpet upside-down. But his most famous act was
undoubtedly his “mumbles” routine, a distinct style of scatting that
mixed nonsense syllables, grunts, noises and countless other forms of
linguistic jibberish.
Clark Virgil Terry Jr.[1] (December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015) was an American swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator.
From the 1970s through the 1990s, Terry performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, and Lincoln Center, toured with the Newport Jazz All Stars and Jazz at the Philharmonic, and was featured with Skitch Henderson's New York Pops Orchestra. In 1998, Terry recorded George Gershwin's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" for the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Red Hot + Rhapsody, a tribute to George Gershwin, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease.
On February 13, 2015, it was announced that Terry had entered hospice care to manage his advanced diabetes.[20] He died on February 21, 2015.[21][22]
Over 250 awards, medals and honors, including:
