Clark Terry

Whether punching out a solo over the massed ranks of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, or playing intimate chamber jazz in a duo with the bassist Red Mitchell, Terry’s gift as a trumpeter was to produce a fluent stream of improvisation that bridged the gap between swing era jazz and the more modern bebop style. His distinctive tone, burnished sound, and manner of eliding notes into one another made him an immediately recognisable jazz “voice” whether playing trumpet or flugelhorn.

In a career that began in the late 1930s and continued until the present decade, Terry established himself as one of the greatest of all jazz trumpeters. He played with both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras, was a key member of Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band, co-led a quintet with the trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, and led many groups of his own, in all configurations from duo to big band.

Terry was also a brilliantly original vocalist, and his wordless blues Mumbles, recorded with Oscar Peterson’s trio, is one of the funniest of all jazz records. Unusually among jazz musicians, Terry was not afraid to clown around on stage and was able to convey his joy and zest for life in his playing.

Clark Terry Jr was born in St Louis in 1920, the seventh of 11 children. He was mentored by an older generation of players and when he had become successful he made it his business to pass tips and encouragement on to younger musicians. “These things can’t be documented, and if we go down with them, the secrets go down with us,” he said. This did not stop him from once refusing to help the young Miles Davis, because Terry was more interested in chatting up the girls at a dance where he was playing. Terry later became a major influence on Davis’s early trumpet style.

Terry was conscripted into a US navy band where he met and worked with several future jazz stars. In 1948 he joined Count Basie’s band and, along with clarinettist Buddy DeFranco (obituary, Feb 19, 2015), Terry was a crucial ingredient in Basie’s octet, formed when his big band became uneconomic in 1948. When the financial situation allowed Basie to re-form his big band, Terry stayed on for a while.

However, Ellington had already spotted Terry’s potential and in 1951 he persuaded the trumpeter to join him. “I can’t take a man out of my friend’s band,” said Ellington, “so I’ll put you on salary. You suddenly get ill and go home, OK?” The ruse worked and Terry joined for nine years, during which time Ellington’s fame grew and Terry became one of his most distinctive soloists. The role of Puck in the Shakespearean suite Such Sweet Thunder was written for him, as was Juniflip, which featured the flugelhorn that Terry had taken up to stave off boredom.

In 1959 he left Ellington to join Quincy Jones’s band for a European tour tied to the ill-fated musical Free As Air. The show flopped after nine days in Paris, and although the theatrical troupe was stranded in Europe, Jones managed to salvage sufficient concerts and recordings for his band to afford to return to America.

Understandably he opted for security on his return and joined the NBC studio orchestra, becoming its first African-American member, and playing on the Tonight show. However, during his 12 years on the NBC staff he found plenty of freelance jazz work and he maintained a frantic schedule, often playing club sets with Brookmeyer or Mulligan until 3am and then appearing at the studios for an 8am call.

His first marriage, to Mayola Robinson, was dissolved and he later married Pauline Reddon, whom he nursed through illness for a number of years. She died in late 1979. One of his favourite stories of her concerned a society wedding. As he made his way in, a white guest turned to him and said, “Boy, would you park my car?” Terry looked back at the man and said, “See that Cadillac over there? That’s my car, and the lady in the mink is my wife. We’re going where you’re going.”

In 1992 he married Gwendoline Paris. They lived in an idyllic house in Bayside in Long Island, with a view of Manhattan across the water. His stepson, Gary Paris, became his de facto manager for the rest of his playing career. They later moved to New Jersey, where Terry received ongoing treatment for eye disease and also for diabetes, which was diagnosed after he had sliced the tops of the fingers on his right hand while trying to detach a hubcap to change a tyre on his car.

Educating future generations of jazz musicians became increasingly important to him and in the 1990s he launched a performance degree at a university in Iowa. He published manuals on trumpet playing and on his technique of continuous or “circular” breathing to play streams of notes while appearing not to pause for breath.

He continued to play and record and, despite failing eyesight, he performed with his customary verve once he was perched on a stool on stage. In 2010 he received an honorary Grammy for his lifetime services to jazz alongside over 250 other awards garnered during his career. He also published an autobiography, Clark, co-written with his wife, in 2011. Diabetes-related circulation problems curtailed his career, and he became a double amputee in 2012. Nonetheless he continued to mentor younger players and a film Keep on Keepin’ On was released in 2014, tracking his working relationship with the young pianist Justin Kauflin.

He is survived by his third wife and by Gary Paris and another stepson, Tony Paris.

Terry spent his last months in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and celebrated his 94th birthday last December, when Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra came to visit him, playing at his hospital bedside.

Clark Terry, jazz trumpeter and bandleader, was born on December 14, 1920. He died on February 21, 2015, aged 94