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Wednesday August 27th 2008 |
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Wednesday August 27th 2008 |
a non-profit education organization | |
January 9
From Pittsburgh, PA., Kenneth Spearman Clark was from a musical family. He studied piano, trombone, drums, vibraphone, and music theory in public schools. From 1929 to 1933, he had his first professional experience as a drummer with Leroy Bradley’s Band, and later with Roy Eldridge. In 1934, he left Pittsburgh for short stint in St. Louis and eventually moving to New York. There he joined the Edgar Hayes Orchestra and in 1937, he made his first European tour and recording debut. While abroad he met and played with a number of musicians, one of which was Dizzy Gillespie. Clark and Gillespie developed the fundamental rhythmic and melodic concepts of bebop. The main difference in the rhythm’s pulse being heard on the cymbals and the drums provided the accents and punctuation. This freed the drums from their traditional role of a time-keeping instrument. His irregular beats became known as dropping bombs and klook-mops, and Clarks nickname became klook. As a composer, Clark was responsible for collaborating on two enduring jazz standards, Salt Peanuts and Epistrophy (a.k.a.) Fly Right. In 1943, Clark was drafted into the Army, serving in Europe until 1946. For the next ten years he toured and recorded extensively with Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and others. In 1952, Clark co-founded the Modern Jazz Quartet while continuing to lead smaller groups, Bohemia After Dark, 1955 and Klook’s Clique, 1956. At this time he settled in Paris and until 1962 he formed a group called the Three Bosses which included expatriate Bud Powell and Oscar Pettiford. From 1960 to 1973, he joined Belgian pianist Francy Boland to create the Francy Boland Big Band. Kenny Clark died on January 26, 1985 in Paris. Reference: Jazz: A History of the New York Scene Samuel Charters and Leonard Kunstadt (Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y., 1962)
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The African American Registry®, The African American Registry® Copyright 2005, 2006
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