Clark Terry
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.
Clark Terry Music of Joy Playlist
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.
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 the State Department tours in the Middle East and Africa. More than fifty jazz festivals featured him at sea and on land on all seven continents. Many were named in his honor.
Clark Terry always played music that was exuberant, swinging, and fun. A brilliant and very distinctive soloist. 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, upon his discharge from the Navy in 1945, he found work with Lionel Hampton's band. He rounded out the 1940s playing with bands led by Charlie Barnet, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Charlie Ventura, and George Hudson. 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 in flugelhorn 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 and as part of Quincy Jones' Orchestra.
He worked and recorded with artists such as J. J. Johnson, Oscar Peterson, and Ella Fitzgerald, then co-led a quintet with Bob Brookmeyer. Thereafter, he led his own small and large bands, including his Big Bad Band, beginning in 1972. He also became part of Norman Granz's traveling all-stars, Jazz at the Philharmonic.
As a jazz educator, he was one of the earliest active practitioners to take time off from the road to enter the classroom, conducting numerous clinics and jazz camps. This work culminated in his own music school at Teikyo Westmar University in Le Mars, Iowa. Terry was the subject of the 2014 documentary Keep on Keepin’ on about his work mentoring blind piano prodigy Justin Kauflin.
A distinctive stylist, he was also an engaging entertainer, often alternating trumpet and flugelhorn in a solo duel with himself in concerts. He recorded and performed in a wide variety of settings, such as the One-on-One recording of duets with 14 different pianists. Terry received numerous awards and honors, including a Grammy Award (and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010), the French Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, a knighthood in Germany, and a star on St. Louis' Walk of Fame.
https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/clark-terry
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/clark-terry-mn0000133832
https://clarkterry.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Terry
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