WICN Artist of the Month, December ’24: Clark Terry

Often, the relationship of a legendary jazz musician to his or her developing gifted pupils reveals the reputation and assigned importance of their influence. Clark Terry, on the shortlist of any jazz musician or scholar’s evaluation of seminal trumpeters (including the flugelhorn), would also be remembered for his advocation, contribution and advancement of musical education. Quincy Jones, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Dianne Reeves, and Terri Lyne Carrington all would cite Terry as a profound inspiration and guide as an early mentor.

Terry created his signature sound on the brass instruments he played, often called “the happiest sound in jazz.” His upbeat swing and unique tone were his own, “highly personal and identifiable, with a jaunty, slurry, and note-bending style.” Many of his musician peers and current horn players have expressed that Terry’s style was instantly recognizable, not by accident or musical nature but by intention. Terry told his students and those he mentored that they must distinguish themselves from other players, or they would never excel.

Born in St. Louis, MO., Terry would be forever changed by hearing the Duke Ellington band in 1930 at 10 years old, “It blew my mind.” In his biography, Clark: the Autobiography of Clark Terry (2011, University of California Press), Terry explains he was so inspired he went home to his inner-city dump and created his own makeshift horn. Using a discarded tail pipe and kerosene can funnel and some metal wire, he started forcing notes through this contraption.  He claims his neighbors, tired of the “noise” echoing through the alley, fronted the twelve dollars necessary to buy him his first authentic trumpet from a local pawn shop.

He gained direct experience finding performance opportunities in the hotbed of nightclub bands in St. Louis in the ‘40s. After performing in a Navy band during World War II, he gained a strong reputation playing with the big band of Charlie Barnet in 1947. Barnet gave Terry significant solo opportunities, considering Terry’s youth: “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.”

In 1948, a much bigger commercial break came when he was hired by the most successful and recognizable draw for big bands in St. Louis, The Count Basie Orchestra. The timing of this opportunity was dire, as big bands were losing favor in a post-WWII era and a general strike was called by The American Federation of Musicians, a union action against record companies, which caused the layoffs and shuttering of many famous jazz bands.

Basie had to cut back his orchestra substantially to budget through these economically lean times, but he kept Terry. As jazz historians recount, the recorded performances at this period for Basie’s band were not exceptional, but a standout composition features Terry’s talent on 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.”

 

In 1951, with a budding reputation as a soloist with star potential, Terry came to the attention of Duke Ellington, who had just lost two key members of his band: legendary saxophonist Johnny Hodges and longtime drummer Sonny Greer. Ellington hired Terry to bring a “charge” back into the orchestra lineup, which also included signing drummer Louie Bellson, which together became “a wind of modernity sweeping through the band.”

Terry always used an educational metaphor to describe the “graduation” from Basie’s band to the Ellington Orchestra: “I refer to my stint with the Ellington band as the period during which I attended the University of Ellingtonia…I refer to my stint with the Basie band as the period during which I attended the prep school in preparation for enrollment at the University of Ellingtonia. So, both those schools were – both bands were very, very important to me.”

https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/clark-terry-apprentice-and-mentor

Ellington would immediately challenge Terry’s range and conceptual ability by presenting him with what would be the first magnum opus of his career, a concert-size version of the Duke’s Perdido, a piece that had “been in the book since 1941.” Reviews of Terry’s extended solo on flugelhorn on this composition are seen as a career landmark in artistic expression, “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.” He had also mastered a continual breathing technique call “circular breathing” that allowed for a longer, sustained and un-interrupted solo delivery.

Terry would later be on stage for the advent of the now-famous 1959 Newport Jazz Festival performance by Ellington’s current band. Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves performed a 27-chorus solo on the songs Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue that brought audiences to their feet and dancing on the festival lawn. The subsequent live concert album release, Ellington at Newport, topped the charts and became Ellington’s largest-selling album. Terry rode this wave of popularity with Ellington’s band and played before the largest audiences of his career during this period, and also formed his own following and fan base.

Late in 1959, Terry would leave Ellington’s band while remembering the musical experience as an absolute highlight in his career and  education, “my decade with Duke was like studying with the grand master every night.”

With his current wider public and recording exposure at this time, Terry would broaden his scope of associations with other top-drawer jazz musicians. Suddenly in demand as a session musician, he would record with Clifford Brown, Maynard Ferguson, Dinah Washington, and Horace Silver on EmArcy Records.

Jazz pianist Thelonious Monk would also select Terry for his landmark 1957 album Brilliant Corners (Riverside, 1957). This groundbreaking release is still regarded as Monk’s masterpiece, with extremely complex and challenging time signatures, rhythm accents, and tempo changes. Terry would be among a chosen group of elite musicians that included a young Sonny Rollins (saxophone) and pre-Kind of Blue bassist Paul Chambers. There would be several minor solo opportunities for Terry on this now-famous influential jazz recording. More importantly, clearly a musical connection occurred during this recording session, as Monk appeared on Terry’s In Orbit (1958). And through an Ellington association, saxophonist Johnny Hodges used him often on his Ellingtonian excursions on Verve.

Quincy Jones, famed arranger, composer and producer, would re-enter Terry’s musical orbit in 1960. In St. Louis, back in 1950, Jones had sought out Terry when he was a budding high school trumpet band player. According to Keep on Keepin’ On, a 2014 documentary about Terry, (produced by Quincy Jones), at this young stage in his musical life, Jones was already ambitious  and seeking mentorship. After hearing Terry perform in a big band at a dance ballroom, Jones doggedly pursued Terry until they agreed on morning instruction before Jones went to school.

Throughout the ‘60s, Terry would return to play a featured soloist role in the Quincy Jones Orchestra. Quincy credits him with giving the most important ingredient in a mentor/mentee relationship: encouragement and belief in his student. During this period, Terry would perform and record with other jazz frontmen, including saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and trombonist Bob Brookmeyer.

Coupled with a desire to “get off the road” in this era, an almost tailor-made opportunity found him when he was hired by the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson’s house band. “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.” In addition to becoming a star horn soloist with the Tonight Show band, and a welcome extrovert personality made for early television audiences, Terry re-established his scat singing. His voice became a secondary expression and vehicle of vocal jazz notes, and a hugely popular feature with live audiences.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, on the legendary jazz label Pablo with founder Norman Granz, Terry would record with Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson in addition to his projects. This period with Pablo Records represents his greatest output of quality recordings other than his big band era career. A particular high-water mark of individual horn contributions, crafting powerful blues interpretations, is found on Abbey Lincoln’s recording The World Is Falling Down (Verve, 1990). 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’s second lifelong passion was teaching, instructing, and mentoring, particularly younger musicians. He established and conducted regular clinics and workshops. As an adjunct professor at William Patterson University, he taught what he called “The Small Group,” instructing music students through the learning of jazz standards, providing them with a musical foundation for the genre.

He explained that his mentoring motivation went beyond the love of jazz, to fill a void in generational sharing. “Terry’s willingness to teach is a reaction to his youth when older musicians seldom taught aspiring musicians for fear of losing work. In contrast, he has always felt it is important to pass knowledge to younger generations so the music may continue to grow.” His contributions to the early development of musicians including Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, and Wynton Marsalis were invaluable. Davis, often careful with praise, expressed Terry’s importance in his youth, stating “Terry was one of my first idols – he was “in” me. Just osmosis.”

In the 2014 documentary Keep on Keepin’ On produced by Quincy Jones, Terry, advanced in age and in failing health, is seen connected with and devoted to mentoring and guiding exceptionally gifted young jazz pianist Justin Kauflin (who happens to be blind). Kauflin competes in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition, a development and opportunity that he credits Terry for providing him with “the belief in himself” that was critical to his musical advancement.

Many accolades and awards have followed Terry’s legendary instrumental, recording, and performing talent, including the induction into the Jazz at Lincoln Center Hall of Fame in 2013, the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and induction into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 2017. Spoken of by Dizzy Gillespie as “one of the greatest trumpet players ever to play the instrument,” there is also the very human side of his “happy” personality and joy for the music and sharing it. Former mentee, Herbie Hancock stated, “When you hear his [Terry’s] horn playing – you hear his life – now only a master can do that.”