Kenny Clarke

Finale Internationaal Jazz Festival Loosdrecht, drummer Kenny Clarke, Bestanddeelnr

924-7968.jpg
Clarke in 1971
Background information
Birth name Kenneth Clarke Spearman
Born January 9, 1914
Origin Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Died January 26, 1985 (aged 71)
Montreuil, France
Genres Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician
Instruments Drums
Years active 1931–1984
Associated acts Dizzy Gillespie, Modern Jazz Quartet, Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland
Big Band
Kenneth Clarke Spearman (January 9, 1914 – January 26, 1985), nicknamed Klook, was
an American jazz drummer and bandleader. A major innovator of the bebop style of
drumming, he pioneered the use of the Ride cymbal to keep time rather than the hi-
hat, along with the use of the bass drum for irregular accents ("dropping bombs").

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was orphaned at the age of about five and
began playing the drums when he was about eight or nine on the urging of a teacher
at his orphanage. Turning professional in 1931 at the age of seventeen, he moved to
New York City in 1935, establishing his drumming style and reputation. As the house
drummer at Minton's Playhouse in the early 1940s, he participated in the after-
hours jams that led to the birth of bebop. After military service in the US and
Europe between 1943 and 1946,he returned to New York, but between 1948 and 1951 he
was mostly based in Paris. He stayed in New York between 1951 and 1956, performing
with the Modern Jazz Quartet and playing on early Miles Davis recordings during
this time. He then moved permanently to Paris, where he performed and recorded with
European and visiting American musicians and co-led the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland
Big Band between 1961 and 1972. He continued to perform and record until the month
before he died of a heart attack in January 1985.

Contents
1 Biography
1.1 Early life and career (1914–1935)
1.2 Move to New York and innovations (1935–1943)
1.3 Military service and later career in the United States (1943–1956)
1.4 Move to Paris and later life (1956–1985)
2 Recognition
3 Discography
3.1 As leader or co-leader
3.2 As sideman
4 Notes
5 References
6 Further reading
Biography
Early life and career (1914–1935)
Clarke was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 9, 1914[note 1] as the
youngest of two sons, to Martha Grace Scott, a pianist from Pittsburgh, and Charles
Spearman, a trombonist from Waycross, Georgia. The family home was on Wylie Avenue
in the Lower Hill District of Pittsburgh. Clarke's father left the household to
start a new family in Yakima, Washington, and his mother, who began a relationship
with a Baptist preacher shortly afterwards, died suddenly in her late twenties when
Clarke was about five, leaving him an orphan. He and his brother were placed in the
Coleman Industrial Home for Negro Boys. .[3][4][5][6] He played in the orphanage's
marching band on the snare drum, which he had taken up on the urging of a teacher
at about age eight or nine, after trying a few brass instruments. When he was young
he also played the piano, on which his mother had taught him to play simple tunes,
along with the pump organ at the parish church, for which he played hymns and
composed pieces that were introduced there.[3][5][6][7][8] At the age of eleven or
twelve, he and his brother resumed living with his stepfather, who did not look
favorably upon music or associating with those involved with it. He dropped out of
Herron Hill Junior High School at the age of fifteen to become a professional
musician. Around the same time, his stepfather threw Clarke and his brother out of
his house after an argument, and Clarke was placed without his brother in a foster
home, where he lived for about a year until his sixteenth birthday.[3][4][5][6]

He then took on several odd jobs while establishing his music career, becoming a
local professional with the Leroy Bradley Band by the age of seventeen. After
touring with the Roy Eldridge band through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio,
he returned to Bradley's band based at the Cotton Club in Cincinnati. He stayed
with that band for two years, broken up by a two-month stint with the Jeter-Pillars
Orchestra, which at the time included trumpeter Harry Edison and bassist Walter
Page, who would go on to be featured in the Count Basie Orchestra. Around this time
he took up the vibraphone, with assistance from Adrian Rollini, a pioneer on the
instrument.[3][5][8]

Move to New York and innovations (1935–1943)

In late-1935, Clarke moved to New York City, where he dropped the surname
"Spearman" to become "Kenny Clarke". He doubled on drums and the vibraphone in a
trio with his half-brother Frank, a bassist and guitarist who had recently moved to
New York and likewise changed his surname from "Spearman" to "Clarke" to profit
from Kenny's newfound fame. In 1936 Clarke played alongside guitarist Freddie Green
in a group fronted by tenor saxophonist Lonnie Simmons, where he began to
experiment with rhythmic patterns against the basic beat of the band. From April
1937 to April 1938 He was in Edgar Hayes's group, still doubling on vibraphone,
where he made his recording debut and traveled overseas for the first time. When he
returned to the US with the band, he struck up a personal and musical friendship
with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie who had been hired for the group's one-week stint at
the Apollo Theater in New York.[3][5][8][9] In his book Drummin' Men: The Heartbeat
of Jazz, music critic Burt Korall writes of this time period: "Clarke was moving
beyond mere functional timekeeping. He had begun to outline and emphasize ensemble,
brass, and saxophone figures and to support soloists in the manner that before long
would be identified as his. ... The revision of the swing drum style had not yet
become fully apparent. But it was clear Clarke was working on something new."[8] He
was encouraged in these endeavors by composer/arranger Joe Garland, who gave him
the band's trumpet parts , and suggested that he play along with the brass when he
felt it necessary to emphasize or support their lines.[8]

He then spent eight months playing drums and the vibraphone in Claude Hopkins's
group, before Gillespie gave Clarke an opening to join him in the Teddy Hill band
in the Savoy Ballroom in 1939.[8] While playing for this group on a fast tune, he
came upon the idea of using the Ride cymbal on his right hand to keep time rather
than the hi-hat, an approach that freed up his left hand to play more syncopated
figures.[3][10] On the bass drum he played irregular accents (dropping bombs),
while using the hi-hat on the backbeats, adding more color to his drumming.[3][10]
With Gillespie, who encouraged this new approach to time keeping, Clarke wrote a
series of exercises for himself to develop the independence of the bass drum and
snare drum, while maintaining the time on the ride cymbal. One of these passages, a
combination of a rimshot on the snare followed directly by a "bomb", reportedly
inspired Clarke's nickname, "Klook", which was short for "Klook-mop", in imitation
of the sound this combination produced.[3][10] At the 1939 New York World's Fair,
Clarke played opposite a band led by fellow drummer Chick Webb, who strongly
influenced him and encouraged his rhythmic explorations.[8][10] He was briefly
fired from Hill's band due to unrest in the trombone section about his unorthodox
time-keeping methods, but later returned and stayed with the group until it
disbanded in 1940. He then worked with bands led by Sidney Bechet, Ella Fitzgerald
(where he and Gillespie are said to have co-written the composition "Salt Peanuts",
and Louis Armstrong, before working with Roy Eldridge once again along with the
Count Basie Orchestra. He also made recordings with Bechet, Fitzgerald, and Mildred
Bailey.[8]

In 1941, Clarke was hired by Hill, who had become the manager of Minton's Playhouse
in Harlem, to handle the music at the club. Clarke was given free rein over whom he
could hire and which style of music he could play. The house band consisted of
trumpeter Joe Guy, pianist Thelonious Monk, bassist Nick Fenton, and Clarke on
drums. Regulars at the club included Gillespie and guitarist Charlie Christian, and
bandleaders such as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman listened to or
participated in the sessions.[3][8] In his entry on Clarke in American National
Biography, Barry Kernfeld wrote: "The sessions became famous for demonstrations of
virtuosity—unexpected harmonies, fast tempos, unusual keys—that discouraged those
whose style did not fit in well. These experimental sounds were crucial to the
development of bebop."[3] It was in this setting that Clarke and Monk co-wrote the
jazz standard "Epistrophy", originally known as "Fly Right". He then led his own
band at Kelly's Stables in New York, the Kansas City Six, featuring tenor
saxophonist Ike Quebec, where the two are said to have come up with the riff tune
"Mop Mop", played in a septet with saxophonist Benny Carter, and performed with Red
Allen's band in Boston and Chicago.[3][8]

Military service and later career in the United States (1943–1956)

Clarke was drafted into the US army and reported for induction in 1943. During his
basic training in 1944, he married singer Carmen McRae. He went absent without
leave for nearly four months, during which time he played with Cootie Williams and
Dinah Washington, before being captured and sent to Europe. he eventually became
part of the Special Services where he led and sang in chorales and performed on
drums, trombone, and piano in various bands. While in Paris he met pianist and
arranger John Lewis, with whom he began a long association.[3][8]

Shortly after being discharged from the military and 1946, Clarke converted to
Islam and took the name Liaquat Ali Salaam.[7][10] He joined Dizzy Gillespie's band
for eight months, replacing Max Roach, who had become the most important bebop
drummer in Clarke's absence. Clarke introduced Lewis to the band and made several
bop recordings with Gillespie's sextet including "One Bass Hit (part 1)" and "Oop
Bop Sh'Bam", where his nickname was enshrined in the scat lyrics "Oop bop sh'bam a
klook a mop".[3][8][10] He left Gillespie's band temporarily and worked with Tadd
Dameron, Sonny Stitt, Fats Navarro, and his own 52nd Street Boys, before rejoining
Gillespie's group in December 1947. He embarked on a tour with the band in Europe
in early 1948, which he considered the highlight of his career. He stayed on in
Paris until that August, recording, performing, teaching, and helping to select
musicians for the First International Jazz Festival. He then returned to New York
for nine months to work with Dameron's group at the Royal Roost. During this time
he also played with bassist Oscar Pettiford's band and recorded in the second
session of the Miles Davis album Birth of the Cool. Also around this time, or
perhaps shortly afterward, he developed an addiction to heroin that lasted until at
least the 1960s. In 1948 he permanently separated from McRae; they divorced in
1956.[3][8][10] In May 1949 Clarke returned to Paris for the festival, making the
city his home base for the next two years. While there he worked and recorded with
bands led by pianist Bernard Peiffer and saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, and returned
to Bechet's band. At this time he met and had a brief affair with jazz singer Annie
Ross, which resulted in a son, Kenny Clarke Jr. (born 1950), who was raised by
Clarke's brother and his wife.[3][11]
Upon returning to New York in 1951, he toured with Billy Eckstine, and made
recordings with saxophonist Charlie Parker's quintet and Milt Jackson's quartet.
Jackson's ensemble, which included Clarke's friend John Lewis, became the Modern
Jazz Quartet, and he performed with the group at the first Newport Jazz Festival in
1954 and recorded for their albums Modern Jazz Quartet (1952), 1953: An Exceptional
Encounter (1953), and Django (1953–1955).[3][8][12] He left the ensemble in 1955,
saying "I wouldn't be able to play the drums my way again after four or five years
of playing eighteenth-century drawing-room jazz".[3] Korall wrote of his work in
the group:

During that period, Clarke provided his share of identity for the band. His cymbal
sound and bass drum work were light and quietly persuasive. Charming rudimental
touches – well-executed ruffs, triplets, short rolls on a tightly tuned snare –
added dimension as he danced within or around the time. His solos, in short bursts,
were conceptually strong, well played, often fascinating, and a little more complex
than they seemed.[8]

Between 1951 and 1954 Clarke recorded with Miles Davis,[8] including tracks that
appeared on the 1957 compilation albums Bags' Groove[13] and Walkin',[14] along
with 1959's Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants.[15] Korall described these
recordings as "his best work of the 1950s – perhaps of his entire career", writing:
"Clarke follows feelings, lives inside the pulse, defining the contours, dynamics,
and implications of each solo and each piece. Like Dave Tough, he is a totally
unselfish player – nonintrusive yet spirited and spiritual."[8] In mid-1955 he
rejoined Pettiford's group at Café Bohemia, later working with him and pianist
Phineas Newborn Jr. at Basin Street West and recording with Pettiford on Newborn's
1956 album Here Is Phineas.[3][16] During this period he was the resident drummer
and a talent scout for Savoy Records, introducing the label to artists such as
saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and Pepper Adams, and trumpeter Donald Byrd.[3] He
often worked with recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who dubbed Clarke's location
in his studio "Klook's corner".[8]