Monday, December 14, 2020

Celebrating 100 years of Clark Terry

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of trumpeter and educator Clark Terry, who remains one of the most famous and significant jazz musicians to be born in St. Louis.

For those who don't know, the brief biography of Terry at AllAboutJazz.com offers a summary of some of his career highlights:
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.

As impressive as that list of achievements is, it omits a couple of yr. StLJN editor's favorite facts about Terry - namely, that he was one of a very few musicians to work with both Duke Ellington and Count Basie, both of whom called Terry the best trumpeter they ever employed; and that he was the first African-American musician to be a regular member of the orchestra led by Doc Severinsen on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, integrating that ensemble in 1962.

StLJN has been paying tribute to Terry this year with a series of Saturday video posts:

Clark Terry plays Duke Ellington
Remembering Clark Terry's Big Bad Band
More from Clark Terry's Big Bad Band
Clark Terry and his famous friends
The further adventures of Clark Terry
Clark Terry speaks!

Also here in his hometown, presenting organization Jazz St. Louis staged their own tribute to Terry, featuring an ensemble of local musicians playing songs written by or associated with the trumpeter. The performance was streamed last Thursday night, and has been archived on YouTube.

After the jump, you can see some of the birthday tributes shared online by fans, DJs, critics, and fellow musicians including Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock. (This portion of the post will be updated several times throughout the day and evening.)















































Posted by Dean Minderman at 10:41 AM
Labels: , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
 

Minibox 3 Column Blogger Template by James William at 2600 Degrees