CLARK TERRY FUNDRAISING EVENT
MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2012, 7 PM
SAINT PETER’S CHURCH
619 Lexington Ave, New York, NY
Gwen Terry, The Duke Ellington Society, International Women in Jazz, Jazz Foundation of America and Saint Peter’s Church – Jazz Ministry are partnering to produce a fundraiser for Clark Terry on Monday, April 23 at 7 PM at Saint Peter’s Church, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street, New York City.
Over 30 musicians will perform for their colleague, Clark Terry, to raise funds to help defray Clark’s medical expenses. Clark Terry plans to appear at the event via Skype.
Suggested donation is $25 at the door.
Checks should be written to Jazz Foundation of America with “Clark Terry account” in the memo line.
Clark Terry’s career in jazz spans more than seventy years. He is a world-class trumpeter, flugelhornist, educator, composer, writer, trumpet/flugelhorn designer, teacher and NEA Jazz Master. He has performed for eight U.S. Presidents, and was a Jazz Ambassador for State Department tours in the Middle East and Africa. More than fifty jazz festivals have featured him at sea and on land in all seven continents. Many have been named in his honor.
He is one of the most recorded musicians in the history of jazz, with more than nine-hundred recordings. Clark’s discography reads like a “Who’s Who in Jazz,” with personnel that include greats such as Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington, Ben Webster, Aretha Franklin, and the list goes on.
Among his numerous recordings, he has been featured with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Count Basie Orchestra, Dutch Metropole Orchestra, Chicago Jazz Orchestra, Woody Herman Orchestra, Herbie Mann Orchestra, Donald Byrd Orchestra, quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, and two big bands – Clark Terry’s Big Bad Band and Clark Terry’s Young Titans of Jazz.
His Grammy and NARAS Awards include: 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, NARAS President’s Merit Award, three Grammy nominations, and two Grammy certificates.
He broke the color barrier by accepting an offer in 1960 from the National Broadcasting Company to become its first African American staff musician. He was with NBC for twelve years as one of the spotlighted musicians in the Tonight Show band. During that time, he scored a smash hit as a singer with his irrepressible “Mumbles.”
Clark has received dozens of other Hall and Wall of Fame Awards, NEA Jazz Master Award in 1991, keys to cities, lifetime achievement awards (four were presented to him in 2010), trophies, plaques and other prestigious awards. The French and Austrian Governments presented him with their esteemed Arts and Letters Awards, and he was knighted in Germany.
His long-awaited book – Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry– is available now, published by University of California Press.
