Two or three notes. That's all it took, according to jazz buffs, to recognize the warm, soulful sound of trumpeter Clark Terry. A bridge figure between the swing and be-bop eras of jazz, Terry played lead trumpet in both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras, became the first African American to play with a television studio band when...
Two or three notes. That's all it took, according to jazz buffs, to recognize the warm, soulful sound of trumpeter Clark Terry.
A bridge figure between the swing and be-bop eras of jazz, Terry played lead trumpet in both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras, became the first African American to play with a television studio band when he was hired in 1962 by the "Tonight Show with Johnny Carson," and developed a singing style all his own.
On Thursday, Sept. 10, the New Jersey City University Alumni Jazz Big Band and the City of Jersey City will celebrate Terry's life and legacy with a blow-out concert at the J. Owen Grundy Pier at Exchange Place starting at 6:30 p.m., the year's final installment of the city's Sounds of Summer Concert Series.A longtime jazz educator in New Jersey and friend to New Jersey City University, Terry, who was living in Arkansas, died in February at 94.
To assist with the salute to Terry, the Alumni all-stars are bringing in a jazz heavyweight: nine-time Grammy-award winner and director of Jazz at Lincoln Center Wynton Marsalis.
"To me, Clark and Wynton play different styles, (but) Wynton has the same effect as a musician, composer and as a jazz educator," said Richard Lowenthal, the NCJU professor who launched the jazz program at the college in 1969 and will be leading the band. "He (Marsalis) was really the only person I thought would come in and do an effective tribute to Clark Terry."
Lowenthal has known both men for years.
In the early 70s, Terry performed five concerts with the NJCU jazz band at the school. Then Terry did something that was unprecedented at the time: He toured with the college band for a week playing high schools. "It was like having a 24/7 seminar in jazz and life," Lowenthal said of the tour.
Terry was the featured soloist at NJCU's 50th anniversary concert in February, 1980.
When Terry lived in Haworth, NJ, Lowenthal and trumpet great Jon Faddis would visit bearing Terry's favorite gifts: collard greens, pulled pork, peach cobbler, and Dry Sack sherry.
If there was any doubt about whom Lowenthal would invite to guest star at Thursday's concert, that likely evaporated when he heard that Marsalis, who was mentored by Terry, took the entire Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to Arkansas to perform for Terry during the final weeks of his life.
Thursday's band will feature 15 NJCU alumni, all of whom make a living as working musicians, and two musicians who were regulars in Terry's group. A current student will be presented with the first annual Clark Terry Award, a highly buffed 12- to 18-inch metal tube signifying the first instrument Terry ever played.
The all-stars will likely be at the top of their games for this tribute to this exuberant and singular musician.
Terry was a master of circular breathing, which allowed him to play riffs extending 28 bars or more without pausing to take a breath. Like Louis Armstrong, Terry became nearly as well known for his singing - really mumbling in Terry's case - as he did for his playing. Instead of using the typical di-di-doo-wop scat vernacular, Terry pretended to mumble real sentences -- an idea he came up with watching bar-goers in his native St. Louis trying to sing after they were smashed.
"He (Terry) was just a completely unique player, which is the essence of jazz," David Demsey, the coordinator of jazz studies at William Paterson University where Terry taught for many years, said in a documentary about the musician.
"Clark is one of the great jazz icons because of his connection to both Count Basie and Duke Ellington. From a jazz perspective, that is like saying someone knew both Washington and Lincoln."
The "Tribute to Clark Terry" concert is free and open to the public. The J. Owen Grundy Pier is located near public transportation and there are parking lots in the area. For more information, call (201) 200-3426 or visit the NJCU website at www.njcu.edu.