RIP Clark Terry

Clark Terry

The jazz world lost Clark Terry yesterday at age 94 after more than a decade of declining health. He was a jazz giant whose legacy extends far beyond being a trumpet player. 

Terry was a true NEA Jazz Master, bandleader and educator. He worked as a sideman in both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington Orchestras at varying times. In the 1960s, he became the first black staff musician at NBC, playing for 12 years in The Tonight Show band. And he was a humorist, best known for his creative and hilarious "Mumbles" versions of scat singing. 

I remember another side of his humor, a moment in which he described what we might call his earliest encounter with "ear training." Educators use the term to refer to the way musicians - solely by hearing - learn to identify the pitches, intervals, melody, chords and rhythms that are part of music. Clark Terry was talking about something quite different as he described  growing up in the St. Louis music scene.