Clarke, Kenny
[Kenneth Spearman; Klook; Klook-mop;
Salaam, Liaquat Ali] (Pittsburgh, 9 Jan 1914 - Montreuil-sous-Bois, near Paris, 26 Jan 1985)
Drummer and bandleader
A member of a musical family, he studied several instruments
in high school and began performing as a professional drummer with Leroy
Bradley's band in Pittsburgh when
he was still a teenager. He later joined Roy Eldridge, and then played in the Midwest
and the East in several major jazz groups, including, in St.
Louis, the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra, and, in New
York, the bands of the tenor saxophonist Lonnie
Simmons, Edgar Hayes, Claude Hopkins, and Teddy Hill. While a member of Hill's
group (1939-40) he and his fellow sideman Dizzy
Gillespie began to experiment with new rhythmic conceptions. In the early 1940s
he was in the house band at Minton's Playhouse, where his association with
Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Christian, Bud
Powell, and others in an extraordinary series of jam sessions led to the
development of the many innovative improvisational techniques that
characterized the bop style. Clarke's nicknames Klook
and Klook-mop were given to him at this time because
he observed the then novel practice of interjecting off-beat accents ("klook" and "klook-mop")
on the snare and bass drum against the steady pulse.
After military service in Europe
(1943-6) Clarke returned to the USA
and recorded with Gillespie, Tadd Dameron,
Fats Navarro, and many others. In 1951 he became a founding member of the Milt
Jackson Quartet, the forerunner of the Modern Jazz Quartet; he played with the
group until 1955. The following year he moved to Paris,
where he worked with several groups, notably Powell's trio (1959-62). From 1960
to 1973, with Francy Boland, he led the Clarke-Boland
Octet and the Clarke-Boland Big Band; the members of these groups included the
American expatriates Benny Bailey, Johnny Griffin, Sahib Shihab,
Zoot Sims, and Idrees Sulieman, and such European performers as Derek Humble, Dusko Goykovich, Åke Persson, and Ronnie Scott.
Clarke also played for the film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1957), appeared in Les liaisons dangereuses 1960 (1959), and wrote music for On n'enterre pas dimanche (1959) and La rivière du
hibou (1961). Although he made occasional concert
tours of the USA,
Clarke continued to perform, record, and teach in Europe
until his death.
Clarke enjoyed a reputation as one of the most sensitive and
innovative jazz musicians. During his years with Gillespie he revolutionized
the drummer's technique by shifting the steady 4/4 pulse from the bass drum to
the ride cymbal, thereby allowing the use of the bass and snare drum for
independent counterrhythms in support of the
improvising musicians. This resulted in a polyrhythmic background that
complemented the asymmetrical phrasing of the soloists, an ideal that became
standard for modern jazz drumming. Among Clarke's compositions are the
well-known Salt Peanuts (written with Gillespie) and Epistrophy
(with Monk).
Olly Wilson
The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, © Macmillan Reference Ltd
1988