Clark Terry Health Update

[Ron Thorne]

From today's Facebook entry ...



Keep On Keepin' On

It is with a heavy heart we share that our beloved Clark Terry is now in hospice care. Gwen and the health
care team are making sure that Clark is as comfortable as possible. During this time the family is asking for
your prayers. We will provide more information as it becomes available.

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[Gentle Giant]

So sad. I hope his suffering ends quickly.

[moldyfigg]

Not being a prayer, all I can do is recall all of the great music he has given us for all these years and play a couple of cds, probably one with Duke and another with Brook.

[ValerieB]

Not being a prayer, all I can do is recall all of the great music he has given us for all these years and play a couple of cds, probably one with Duke and another with Brook.

you don't have to be a "prayer," Clint! how about sending out some positive vibes for this man's end of suffering. someone who has given us so much!

[Ron Thorne]

Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Clark Terry Goes To Hospice

February 13, 2015 by Doug Ramsey



Clark Terry has gone into hospice care after years of illness in which he was able to stay at home. The great trumpeter is 94 and suffers from extreme complications of diabetes. A fund raising campaign in and beyond the jazz community made his home care possible. This afternoon, Billboard posted the hospice news with a message from CT’s wife Gwen, a brief summary of his career and video of a memorable appearance as his alter ego, the blues singer celebrated as “Mumbles.” To read the Billboard piece, go here.

When I learn of further developments in Clark’s situation, I will keep you informed. In the meantime, this Rifftides piece posted on his 90th birthday contains two performance videos and observations about the importance of one of the most gifted and beloved of all jazz artists.


CLARK TERRY IS 90
Posted on December 14, 2010

Today is Clark Terry’s 90th birthday. Admired for his trumpet, flugelhorn, singing and blues mumbling, Terry has been an idol of trumpet players since the teenaged Miles Davis took him for a role model in St. Louis in the 1940s. From his days with Charlie Barnet, Count Basie and Duke Ellington through his national prominence in the Tonight Show band and his long career as a leader and soloist, CT has been an inspiration to generations of musicians. It is a rare set in which Terry doesn’t include something by Ellington, whom he invariably calls Maestro. Here’s CT with his quartet at the Club Montmartre in Copenhagen in 1985. Duke Jordan is the pianist, Jimmy Woode the bassist, Svend E. Noregaard the drummer.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buX0nJiCJ5Q


From Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of Its Makers, here is a passage from the chapter on Terry:

With Ellington, Terry blossomed. Duke’s genius for recognizing and capitalizing on the characteristics of his sidemen has rarely had more startling results than in the case of Clark Terry.

Ellington sensed in Terry something of the New Orleans tradition. When he was preparing A Drum Is A Woman, his suite in which New Orleans plays a large part, he chose Terry to portray Buddy Bolden. Bolden’s style is entirely legendary; no recordings of him are known to exist. Terry recalls protesting the assignment.

“I told him, ‘Maestro, I don’t know anything about Buddy Bolden. I wouldn’t know where to start.’ Duke said, ‘Oh, sure, you’re Buddy Bolden. He was just like you. He was suave. He had a good tone, he bent notes, he was big with diminishes, he loved the ladies, and when he blew a note in New Orleans, he’d break glass across the river in Algiers. Come on, you can do it.’ I told him I’d try, and I blew some phrases, and he said, ‘That’s it, that’s Buddy Bolden, that’s it, Sweetie.’ That’s how Maestro was. He could get out of you anything he wanted. And he made you believe you could do it. I suppose that’s why they used to say the band was his instrument. The Buddy Bolden thing is on the record, and Duke was satisfied. So as far as I’m concerned, it was Buddy Bolden.”

On this auspicious day in Clark Terry’s long life, let us indulge ourselves in one of his great summit meetings. At the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977, he, Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Lockjaw Davis and the Oscar Peterson Trio joined forces for the incomparable “Ali and Frazier,” introduced on this video by the impresario Norman Granz.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKE4pKFZRXg


“Ali & Frazier” is also on this CD.
Happy birthday, CT.


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[Ron Thorne]

Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Happy CT Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2015 by Doug Ramsey



The obvious choice for music in a Valentine’s Day post may seem a cliché. Of course, Rifftides wouldn’t be caught dead clichéing. Still, given yesterday’s news about Clark Terry (see the next item in the queue), it seemed appropriate to discover whether “My Funny Valentine” shows up in his discography. It does in a 1963 Gary Burton album by the 20-year-old vibraharpist and guest artists. Terry plays flugelhorn on the Rodgers and Hart song which, under his stewardship, is too lovely to be a cliché. Burton makes a brief atmospheric appearance toward the end of the piece. Tommy Flanagan is the pianist, John Neves the bassist, Chris Swanson the drummer.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdXe7u3p5qo


The long-playing vinyl album Who Is Gary Burton? all but disappeared for years, occasionally surfacing in used record stores and flea markets. German BMG reissued it as a CD in 1996. It is also available as an LP. In addition to Terry, Bob Brookmeyer and Phil Woods are guests, and Joe Morello plays drums on some tracks.

Happy Valentine’s Day.



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[bluenoter]

On that note and those notes, we'll need to end the Clark Terry Health Update thread, because Clark Terry's long life has ended (and so has his suffering). Please see this thread:

Clark Terry — R.I.P.