Clark Terry
Elegance on and off the bandstand.
I was just 23 years of age and found myself in the “House trio” at Rick’s Café Américain. It was a jazz club within the Holiday Inn on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. It was decorated in the style of the movie Casablanca, which starred Humphrey Bogart playing the owner of Rick’s Café Américain, a nightclub in Casablanca, Morocco, during World War II.
We worked five nights a week and were the backup trio, providing the headliners who would lead the group. We worked with a different leader each week.
I had been an occasional sub there for the bassist Jim Atlas, a highly seasoned and well-respected veteran. He decided to move to Los Angeles and called me one day, offering me the gig. It was a gift from the heavens. I would be in that job for an entire year. It was one of the most extraordinary learning experiences and training grounds of my whole career.
I learned and grew every week performing with the headliners of the day. Harry “Sweets” Edison, Marian McPartland, Urbie Green, Sonny Stitt, Bucky Pizzarelli, and the like were my weekly university courses.
One of the most outstanding “professors” I was fortunate to perform with during that period was the great Clark Terry. He had been a longstanding member of both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington Orchestras in the Late 1940s and well into the 1950s, had made numerous recordings with all sorts of groups, began to emerge as a bandleader himself, and became much in demand as a studio musician, eventually joining the Tonight Show band and was often a featured soloist.
He was such a positive presence and very encouraging to me as the “youngblood” on the band. Our pianist, Willie Pickens, and drummer, Jerry Coleman, were already in their 50s and were well-seasoned professionals. I was sort of in the hot seat.
Musically, the first thing I noticed was that Clark was one of the easiest of all the leaders to play with. His clarity of presentation and the storytelling nature of his playing were easy to follow. I eventually came to understand that it was his great sense of time and rhythm that made it possible for me to figure out what I needed to provide to complement what he was playing.
Clark Terry. One of the high masters of jazz music.
As the week progressed, I noticed that he would often pause for what seemed like long intervals and not play anything, leaving long gaps of silence. I began to think that there might be something we were doing, or worse, that I was doing, that was bothering or inhibiting his objectives. I decided to ask him if he was comfortable with us, and I told him it seemed that the fact that he was stopping and starting during his solos made me wonder if he was displeased with what he was hearing. He then smiled broadly in the most reassuring way and said, “Todd, if I am not playing and making sound, you are playing my solo for me.”
That was a revelation. I began to realize that it was our solo, and that everyone had an opportunity to contribute to the greater musical good. We weren’t merely “backup” players, but we were able to enhance and influence how the soloist would shape their solo. I felt as if my contribution via my musicality was valued and that what I played influenced the eventual outcome. That was both rewarding and daunting at the same time. What I played really mattered, and I could enhance or possibly sabotage the music. It was a real eye and ear opener.
Shortly after I left that gig, I moved to New York City to try to make it in the ultimate jazz major leagues, so to speak. Not long after getting relocated, I found myself working a week with Clark in one of the well-known Greenwich nightclubs. It was the Village Vanguard, but I cannot recall precisely.
On opening night, I got to work early, hurriedly set up my bass, and went back to the kitchen, which doubled as the musicians’ dressing room, of sorts. Clark was already back there as he had arrived before I did. He said he had something to share with me that he had learned from his elders. “They see you before they hear you, and you become the performer the moment you enter the club.” He had noticed that I had a rather nonchalant manner when I entered, got my bass out, tossed the cover on the floor, and looked generally careless. He said, “You need to look like you are serious and caring about your work, your instrument, and that the bandstand is a special place. You are setting expectations for how the audience will receive your music.” Wow, another revelation and a valuable one that I have never forgotten. I have employed that principle ever since.
As the night ended, Clark handed me a hundred-dollar bill and said, “Tomorrow, go to the Florsheim shoe store on Fifth Avenue in midtown, ask for my man Freddie, and tell him I sent you. Tell him to sell you a pair of shoes suitable for performing with Clark Terry, and he will know what you need. Consider it a gift from me to you.”
Clark Terry. Elegance, artistry, and professionalism personified.
Over the years, I wore those shoes out on any number of gigs and eventually had to donate them to Goodwill. I wish I had kept them solely as a reminder of all the things that Clark taught me about professionalism, self-respect, and that the music we played was worthy of the same kind of attention and care that the New York Philharmonic demonstrates each time they take the stage.
Thanks again, Clark, for mentoring me musically, professionally, and personally. I have tried to pay it forward ever since my early days, and have shared much of that wisdom with the many younger and aspiring musicians I continue to encounter. Some of them even choose to listen. I hope someday they will feel as lucky as I do today.
TC
Clark Terry wasn’t just a great trumpeter—he was a radiant human being whose life was a harmony of soul, swing, and service. I was lucky—blessed—to know Clark, hear him live many times, and call him a friend. The world felt brighter in his presence. The music felt deeper.
CT was one of those rare musicians you could identify in two notes flat. That buttery, golden tone—half sunlight, half velvet—could dance, croon, cry, or crack you up. His horn didn’t just play. It spoke. It whispered secrets, it shouted joy, it told jokes that made your soul chuckle. His phrasing was pure conversation—fluent, playful, alive.
He mentored a young Miles Davis in St. Louis. He played with both Count Basie and Duke Ellington, mastering the elegance of swing, then bridged generations to nurture the fire of bebop and beyond. Few musicians walked so gracefully between eras. Fewer still brought such humanity with them.
Technically, Clark was razor-sharp. But he never played for the sake of complexity. He played with heart. Especially on flugelhorn—his signature sound—he poured out warmth and wit and wonder. His time feel was sublime. Whether inside a tight ensemble or stretching out on his own, he swung like joy itself had learned to walk.
And of course—Mumbles. That gibberish scat character, slurring and stumbling with perfect pitch, was absurd and brilliant and unforgettable. It was satire and soul. It made people laugh—and through laughter, listen.
In his later years, Clark became a lighthouse for young musicians. He mentored thousands, from wide-eyed kids to future legends like Quincy Jones. He taught with patience, with joy, with a generosity that was downright spiritual. Born into poverty and shaped by racism, he refused to grow bitter. He grew better. He lifted people up. He opened doors. He gave more than he ever took.
Even when diabetes took his legs. Even when blindness set in. He kept teaching. He kept smiling. He kept swinging.
Watch Keep on Keepin’ On—his beautiful, aching documentary about mentoring blind pianist Justin Kauflin. It’ll break your heart wide open, then sew it back together with love and music.
In a business full of ego and insecurity, Clark was humble. Funny. Profoundly kind. He treated janitors and jazz royalty the same way—with respect, warmth, and a spark of mischief.
He was one of those rare souls whose greatness wasn’t just in how he played, but why. And who he was while doing it.
I was a barely better-than-average high-school trumpet player when I borrowed my dad's car to drive to Toronto with two friends to see Clark Terry in a club with a local rhythm section in 1984. At the set break I told him I played in my school band and asked if he'd play "Ow," the Dizzy Gillespie tune. I'd heard him play it in Detroit several months earlier. Near the end of the next set, he said, "This next tune was requested by a *colleague* of mine..." and proceeded to absolutely breathe fire on "Ow." That's my story; thanks so much for yours.