Table of Contents

Early life
Big band era
Later career
Death and tributes
Awards and honors
Discography
As leader/co-leader
As sideman
Bibliography
References
External links

Clark Terry

NameClark Terry
Image
CaptionTerry at the 1981 Monterey Jazz Festival
Birth NameClark Virgil Terry Jr.
Birth Date1920-12-14
Birth PlaceSt. Louis, Missouri, US
Death PlacePine Bluff, Arkansas, US
InstrumentTrumpet ⋅ flugelhorn ⋅ vocals
GenreJazz ⋅ swing ⋅ bebop ⋅ hard bop
OccupationMusician ⋅ composer
Years Active1940s–2015
LabelPrestige ⋅ Pablo ⋅ Candid ⋅ Mainstream ⋅ Impulse!
Past Member OfCharlie Barnet ⋅ Count Basie ⋅ Duke Ellington orchestra ⋅ Quincy Jones ⋅ Bob Brookmeyer ⋅ The Tonight Show Band ⋅ Oscar Peterson ⋅ The Newport Jazz All Stars ⋅ Jazz at the Philharmonic ⋅ Skitch Henderson's New York Pops Orchestra ⋅ Clark Terry's Big Bad Band ⋅ Clark Terry's Young Titans of Jazz
Websiteclarkterry.com

Clark Virgil Terry Jr. (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.

He played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948–51), Duke Ellington (1951–59), Quincy Jones (1960), and Oscar Peterson (1964–96). He was with The Tonight Show Band on The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1972. His career in jazz spanned more than 70 years, during which he became one of the most recorded jazz musicians, appearing on over 900 recordings. Terry also mentored Quincy Jones, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Dianne Reeves, and Terri Lyne Carrington.

Early life

Terry was born to Clark Virgil Terry Sr. and Mary Terry in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 14, 1920. 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.

Terry at the 1981 Monterey Jazz Festival

Big band era

Blending the St. Louis tone with contemporary styles, Terry's years with Basie and Ellington (who secretly recruited Terry away from Basie) 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, and Jones during Terry's frequent visits to Seattle with the Count Basie Sextet.

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". 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."

Clark has many relationships in the music world and they all speak highly of him. One of those relationships was Quincy Jones, who wrote the preface to Terry's autobiography. Jones led a band for the musical Free and Easy in 1959, and Terry left Duke Ellington Orchestra to join them in Belgium.

Terry continued to play with musicians such as trombonist J. J. Johnson and pianist Oscar Peterson, 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. 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.

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.

Later career

Terry in New York City, 1976

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.

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.

His autobiography was published in 2011. 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."

The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings notes that Terry appears on more of its listed recordings than any other artist. According to his own website Terry was "one of the most recorded jazz artists in history and had performed for eight American Presidents." He was adept in the challenging technique of circular breathing, by which an instrumentalist can play for extended periods without stopping for breath, and in 1976 he published his Clark Terry's System of Circular Breathing for Woodwind and Brass Instruments.

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 Kauflin prepared to compete in an elite, international competition.

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.

Death and tributes

Terry performing at the White House with singer Nnenna Freelon in 2006

On February 13, 2015, it was announced that Terry had entered hospice care to manage his advanced diabetes. He died on February 21, 2015.

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."

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."

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 ..."

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.

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.

Awards and honors

Terry performing with the Great Lakes Navy Band Jazz Ensemble

Over 250 awards, medals and honors, including:

Discography

As leader/co-leader


As sideman

With Gene Ammons


With Dave Bailey

With Ray Bryant

With Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis

With Duke Ellington

With Stan Getz

With Dizzy Gillespie

With Johnny Griffin

With Johnny Hodges

With Milt Jackson

With J. J. Johnson

With Quincy Jones

With Mundell Lowe

With Herbie Mann

With Gary McFarland

With Charles Mingus

With Blue Mitchell

With Gerry Mulligan

With Oliver Nelson

With Oscar Peterson

With Dave Pike

With Lalo Schifrin

With Sonny Stitt

With Billy Taylor

With Cal Tjader

With others

Bibliography


References


External links


Category:1920 births
Category:2015 deaths
Category:African-American songwriters
Category:African-American United States Navy personnel
Category:American jazz educators
Category:American jazz flugelhornists
Category:American jazz songwriters
Category:American male songwriters
Category:American jazz trumpeters
Category:American male trumpeters
Category:Bebop trumpeters
Category:Candid Records artists
Category:Chesky Records artists
Category:Count Basie Orchestra members
Category:Duke Ellington Orchestra members
Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Category:Hard bop trumpeters
Category:Mainstream jazz trumpeters
Category:Musicians from St. Louis
Category:People from Bayside, Queens
Category:People from Corona, Queens
Category:People from Haworth, New Jersey
Category:Post-bop trumpeters
Category:Red Baron Records artists
Category:Songwriters from Missouri
Category:Swing trumpeters
Category:Jazz musicians from New York (state)
Category:Jazz musicians from Missouri
Category:Educators from New York City
Category:Educators from New Jersey
Category:Educators from Missouri
Category:American male jazz musicians
Category:The Tonight Show Band members
Category:Statesmen of Jazz members
Category:Pablo Records artists
Category:Mainstream Records artists
Category:MPS Records artists
Category:Riverside Records artists
Category:Prestige Records artists
Category:Nagel-Heyer Records artists
Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II
Category: United States Navy Band musicians
Category:EmArcy Records artists
Category:African Americans in World War II
Category:Vashon High School alumni
Category:DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame members
Category:Musicians from Bergen County, New Jersey
Category:NEA Jazz Masters
Category:Flugelhorn players