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African American Biography (Oxford)

Kenny Clarke

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By Barry Kernfeld | Jan 1, 2008
(9? Jan. 1914 -- 26 Jan. 1985), jazz drummer and bandleader, was born Kenneth Clarke Spearman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Charles Spearman and Martha Grace Scott. His birth date is almost always given as 9 January, but the writer Ursula Broschke Davis maintains that the actual date is 2 January. His mother played piano, and at a young age Kenny learned to play both this instrument and, in church, pump organ. Biographers concur that his boyhood was miserable, and he hid the experience behind rosy and contradictory memories. His father abandoned the family. When Kenny was around five years old, his mother died. Her companion, a Baptist preacher, placed him in the Coleman Industrial Home for Negro Boys in Pittsburgh, where he tried a few brass instruments before taking up drums. At about age eleven or twelve he resumed living with his stepfather. He attended several elementary schools and Herron Hill Junior High School before dropping out at age fifteen to become a professional musician. After an argument with his stepfather, he was placed in a foster home.

At sixteen years old, Kenny lived on his own, initially working day jobs while getting established in music. He was a local professional by age seventeen, drumming and occasionally playing piano. At one point he toured in a band that included the trumpeter RoyEldridge, and he briefly joined the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra in St. Louis before spending three years with Leroy Bradley's orchestra at the Cotton Club in Cincinnati.

Moving to New York City late in 1935, Clarke dropped his surname, thereafter working as Kenny Clarke. He doubled as a vibraphonist in a trio with his half-brother Frank Spearman, a bassist who also took Clarke as a surname to capitalize on his brother's newfound fame. Kenny Clarke played alongside the guitarist Freddie Greene in the tenor saxophonist Lonnie Simmons's band at the Black Cat in Greenwich Village. Still doubling on vibraphone, Clarke joined Edgar Hayes's band in April 1937, touring Europe from December 1937 -- April 1938 and briefly working alongside the trumpeter DizzyGillespie. At some point Clarke joined the pianist ClaudeHopkins's band; the chronology is uncertain.

Clarke became a member of Teddy Hill's big band, which included Gillespie. Hill puzzled over the drummer's abandonment of a steady four-beat rhythm on the bass drum in favor of irregular accents and reportedly asked, “What is this klook-mop stuff you're playing?” Hence his nickname, “Klook.” Dissatisfied, Hill fired Clarke, who then performed with the reed player SidneyBechet at the Long Cabin in Fonda, New York (c. Dec. 1939 -- Jan. 1940); they recorded together in February 1940. Later that year Clarke accompanied the singers Mildred Bailey and BillieHoliday on record, joined Eldridge's band, and served as the house drummer at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Clarke spent the summer of 1941 in Louis Armstrong's big band. He also toured with EllaFitzgerald, who was leading the memorial ChickWebb band, and recorded in a small band accompanying Fitzgerald in October 1941. That same year Hill, who had disbanded and taken a job managing Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, hired Clarke to lead the house band that included the trumpeter Joe Guy, the pianist TheloniousMonk, and the bassist Nick Fenton. Hill encouraged sitting in; the guitarist CharlieChristian and Gillespie were regulars there, and many other renowned musicians appeared. In this setting Clarke collaborated with Monk in writing “Fly Right,” which became a bebop standard under a new title, “Epistrophy.” More generally 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.

At Kelly's Stable in New York, Clarke led his own Kansas City Six, including Monk and the tenor saxophonist IkeQuebec, and then he played alongside Gillespie in the alto saxophonist Benny Carter's septet from 10 December 1941 -- 4 February 1942. He joined RedAllen's band for performances in Chicago and Boston. In mid-1943 Clarke was drafted into the army. One year later, while stationed in Alabama, he married the singer CarmenMcRae. Absent without leave for 107 days, Clarke was captured and shipped overseas in September 1944. He played trombone and sang in Europe until his discharge in April 1946. Out of New York for three years, Clarke missed the full flowering of the bebop style, and MaxRoach, not Clarke, became its foremost exponent on drums.

During his army service, Clarke was once again known as Spearman. Shortly after his discharge he became a Muslim and took the name Liaquat Ali Salaam. He replaced Roach in Gillespie's big band, and from May -- September 1946 he made a series of classic bop recordings, including “Oop Bop Sh'Bam” and “One Bass Hit (Part 1),” with Gillespie's sextet. During this period Clarke also participated in a session with the saxophonist SonnyStitt; recorded “Epistrophy” and other titles with his own 52nd Street Boys, which included the trumpeter Fats Navarro and the pianist Bud Powell; and joined a recording session under Navarro's leadership.

After recording with Gillespie again in August 1947, Clarke joined Gillespie's big band in December, touring Europe from January -- March 1948. Clarke considered this the finest musical experience of his life; unfortunately his drumming was not well captured on Gillespie's recordings. Clarke stayed in Paris, performing, teaching, recording, and helping Nicole Barclay organize the forthcoming Paris Jazz Festival. Returning to New York in August, Clarke joined TaddDameron's band at the Royal Roost and recorded with Dameron and numerous bebop all-stars between August 1948 and April 1949. Early in 1949 he played with the bassist OscarPettiford's big band and trio, and he recorded the second of the trumpeter MilesDavis's Birth of the Cool sessions. Around this time or perhaps a bit later, Clarke became a heroin addict. He remained on narcotics at least into the 1960s, but unlike many of his colleagues, he was somehow a discreet user. Many people did not know that he was addicted, and he did not exhibit stereotypical characteristics, such as irresponsibility or exploitation of friendships.

Late in 1948 Clarke and McRae separated permanently. They had no children and divorced in 1956. He returned to Paris for the jazz festival in May 1949 as a member of another all-star bop ensemble, and in Zurich he gave a concert with the saxophonist CharlieParker and Davis. Again he stayed in Europe, touring Belgium with the pianist Bernard Peiffer and making Paris his home base. He worked there with the bassist Pierre Michelot and later toured to Tunis in a group that included the saxophonist JamesMoody and the singer Annie Ross. Clarke also toured Europe with Moody and Michelot under the saxophonist ColemanHawkins's leadership. Reunited with Bechet, he recorded “Klook's Blues” and “American Rhythm” in October 1949.

Clarke had a child from an affair with Ross. In 1951 they took their son to Pittsburgh to be raised by Clarke's brother Chuck Spearman. Clarke toured with the singer BillyEckstine and in August 1951 recorded with both Parker's quintet and the vibraphonist MiltJackson's quartet. With the pianist JohnLewis replacing HoraceSilver and the bassist PercyHeath replacing RayBrown, Jackson's quartet became the long-lived Modern Jazz Quartet. Clarke performed with this quartet at the first Newport Jazz Festival (with Silver in 1954) and recorded the albums MJQ (1952) and Django (1953 -- 55), which exemplify his mastery of wire brushes on the drum set. But Clarke quarreled with Lewis over the quartet's artistic direction and leadership, and he quit the group around March 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” (Hennessey, 100).

Clarke recorded prolifically during these years. In 1954 he contributed to numerous classic hard bop recordings under Davis's leadership, including “Solar,” “Walkin’,” “Airegin,” “Oleo,” and “Bags’ Groove.” He served as a talent scout and resident drummer for Savoy Records, to which he brought Silver, the saxophonists Pepper Adams and CannonballAdderley, and the trumpeter DonaldByrd, among others. Clarke joined Pettiford's group at the Café Bohemia in mid-1955 and continued with Pettiford and the pianist PhineasNewborn at Basin Street West in March 1956.

At this point Clarke, exhausted from continuous studio and nightclub work, moved to Paris in search of a more relaxed life. Apart from a few brief periods, he spent the remainder of his life in Europe. He continued to record profusely. After working in Jacques Hélian's orchestra, he held long engagements in Paris at the Club St. Germain (1957 -- 1958; 1963; early 1970s) and the Blue Note (1959 -- 1962; 1964 -- 1966), with regular breaks for concerts and tours throughout Europe. Among his long-standing associates were the pianists Martial Solal, Bud Powell, René Urtreger, and Raymond Fol; the organists Lou Bennett and Eddy Louiss; the electric guitarists Jimmy Gourley and René Thomas; and the bassists Michelot, Michel Guadry, and Jimmy Woode. Organized variously into three- and four-piece rhythm sections, Clarke and these associates accompanied such soloists as the saxophonists LesterYoung, StanGetz, DexterGordon, Johnny Griffin, and Sonny Stitt; the trumpeter Gillespie; and the trombonist J.J.Johnson. The spirit of these years was later captured in the movie ’Round Midnight (1986). In 1962 Clarke settled east of Paris in Montreuil-sous-Bois and married Daisy Dina Wallbach; they had a son. Clarke was never able to take French citizenship. Instead, he renewed his residency status as an immigrant every three years.

With the arranger Francy Boland as co-leader, Clarke recorded The Golden Eight in 1961. This led to the formation of the Clarke-Boland Big Band. Widely recognized as Europe's finest jazz big band, the group began touring in 1966 and remained active to 1972. From 1967 -- 1972 Clarke taught at the St. Germain–en–Laye Conservatoire, and from 1967 he also taught at the Kenny Clarke Drum School at the Selmer musical instrument company in Paris.

Clarke returned to the United States to receive a Duke Ellington Fellowship from Yale University (1972), to participate in a reunion of Gilliespie's band in Chicago (1976), to receive awards from the cities of Pittsburgh and New York, and to teach at the University of Pittsburgh (1979). He performed at jazz festivals throughout Europe until 1983. Having already suffered a heart attack in 1975, he died in Montreuil-sous-Bois.

Clarke is widely remembered as calm, kind, dignified, self-effacing, and quiet and as a complete professional. A generous teacher, he was infinitely patient, even with amateur musicians. He was only known to lose his composure when accompanying those few leading jazz musicians who could not keep a steady beat. His biographer Mike Hennessey, keen to establish the drummer's significance, uncritically accepts imprecise, exaggerated, and sometimes impossible claims. For example, he states that Clarke developed a new style of rhythm section playing with Simmons in 1936 after hearing the bassist JimmyBlanton's recordings with Duke Ellington, but these discs were made in 1940. It is impossible to know just what Clarke did because of undocumented events; the rapid interchange of ideas; the concurrent contributions of SidCatlett, JoJones, ShadowWilson, and other drummers; Clarke's own unsubstantiated claims; and Clarke's absence from the scene during army service while Roach made his mark in bebop. Nonetheless, no one questions his stature as one of the greatest and most innovative jazz drummers. The music educator Theodore Dennis Brown documents Clarke's achievements on the tracks with Bechet in 1940 and from amateur recordings made live at Minton's in 1941. In these recordings one can hear components of an overriding sense of musicality that distinguished Clarke's playing. He made such innovations as clicking the high hat cymbal closed on the backbeat (beats two and four of the measure); accenting in an improvisatory manner (and staying out of the bass player's way) by “dropping bombs” (irregular accents) on the bass drum rather than marking every beat with that drum; keeping a steady flowing sound on the ride cymbal; and articulating phrases in fragmented and asymmetrical ways in response to the improvising soloist.

Copyright © 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

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