Trumpet legend Clark Terry will receive this year’s Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (click on “news” from his homepage). Glad for this. About four or five years ago, Terry played one of the best shows I’d seen in a while at the Village Vanguard, wiping away all memory of a mediocre gig I caught earlier the same evening. One clarion trumpet phrase early in the set and all was put in place, as if by an electric jolt. Already at that point, Terry could barely walk, and he ceded control of the band largely to alto saxophonist Dave Glasser. And yet when he put the horn to his lips, his command of the language was undiminished, and every player there had to have been reminded just what this whole thing jazz was about. Clark Terry in the house.
Honoring Clark Terry, and more
I am in agreement with my fellow critics who took part in Nate Chinen’s 2009 roundtable: jazz should be about fluid borders, fragmentation, future focus, all of that. But the Clark Terrys won’t be around forever, and sometimes I fear we’re losing touch with that timeless quality that Terry conveyed at the Vanguard, that sense of the universe in a single blues phrase or even note. After all, Terry wasn’t throwing in current references to hip-hop rhythm. He wasn’t tweaking his instrumentation in a nod to Brooklyn indie rock. He was playing jazz. That dirty word.
Probably all of my colleagues would agree that Terry is a badass who deserves praise. That’s not my main point. It’s that we shouldn’t hail Terry, then turn around and punish younger players who choose to work in Terry’s idiom. It’s not like old-school swinging somehow cancels out the other innovation that’s going on. We need to get past that anxiety.
2 Comments
GREAT post, David! I saw Clark a number of years ago and had a similar transcendent experience.
And I wholeheartedly agree that there's no need for all this teeth-gnashing about moving the music forward vs. swinging and honoring the tradition. There's enough room for it all and none of it hurts "the music".
Thanks for your level-headed thoughts this morning.
Jason
http://oneworkingmusician.com
I too had the privilege of seeing Clark. He is truly one of the best!
Perhaps he will make his way to Toronto in the near future.