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Kenny Clarke recommendations


TheMusicalMarine

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Klook is one of my all-time favorites!

I HIGHLY recommend the following:

1) The Trio (Savoy cd) Hank Jones, Wendell Marshall, and Klook (masterful brushwork)

2) Dexter Gordon: Our Man In Paris (Blue Note)

3) Bud Powell: Tribute to Cannonball (Columbia) w/ Don Byas (great early 60's Bud and Klook)

4) Charlie Parker: Swedish Schnapps (Verve) w/ Klook on half and Max Roach on half

5) Sonny Rollins: Live In France 1959 (Landscape) Hard to find live date with Klook and Henry Grimes (Killer stuff!!) I think it's been released on several different labels

6) Monk: Plays Duke Ellington (Riverside) very subtle Klook on brushes mostly; great Monk trio date; with Oscar Pettiford also!

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Like Andrew, Klook is one of my favorites and was an inspiration for my drumming (way back when).

His list looks like one I would concoct!

I'll add that if you can find them his work on the Rearward small group cds of the Clarke Boland Big Band is phenomenal, as is his work in the Francy Boland Quartet recording on MPS "Out of the Background." Great stuff that I reach for for a Klook fix!

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Klook was amazing "in person". He had a unique sound and the brush/snare/cymbal work was magical. In the late '70s he was in Chicago for a week or two to tape a TV show (Diz tribute) and worked a week at Joe Segal's. I went to the club and the show tapings. I envy our French friends with more opportunities to listen.

I think the CBBB has it's own qualities (very fine), but it's not the best place to hear Klook. Two drummers blur the image.

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agriffith's recommendations were right on target.

Other favorites I would add:

- the Charlie Christian jam sessions from 1941 where Kenny Clarke bombs the scene,

- Round About Midnight at the Blue Note, a 1962 date with Bud Powell (Dreyfus),

- the Walter Davis live album at Le Dreher in Paris (with Pierre Michelot) which has just been reissued. One of Kenny Clarke's last date with a superb trio.

http://www.alapage.com/mx/?tp=F&type=3&DIQ...nee_appel=REF05

I was lucky to hear Kenny Clarke quite a number of times when he was the house drummer at the Club Saint-Germain (later at the Blue Note) in the late fifties. Heard him then with most of the invited guests: Miles Davis, Jay Jay Johnson, Bud Powell, etc. That was an education!

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Chuck, those Clarke-Boland recordings I recommend are all small group and have just Klook on the traps, no Clare.

On Rearward there's "Calypso Blues," "All the Cats," and "Griff and Bags." And the MPS Boland Quartet group (Boland, Woode, Sadi, Clarke) is killer ("Out of the Background"). Clarke really swings hard and does amazing work on these.

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The Clarke-Wilkins is a great cd and a tough find these days...but if you search around you're bound to find a copy, Marine. That, and several of the Fuller Savoys (Jazz Eyes, Jazz, It's Magic) have popped up on the Amazon site in recent months.

The two that I'd like to see come out on cd are 'Klook's Clique' and the excellent 'Paris/Cologne' double LP (Disques Swing) that collects four '57 sessions recorded in Paris & Cologne featuring Clarke in a quartet, quintet, sextet, octet and tentet w/folks like Lucky Thompson, Martial Solal, Don Byas, Pierre Michelot, Fats Sadi, Maurice Vander, etc.. You ever spot this one sitting in an LP bin, dive for it!

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2) Dexter Gordon: Our Man In Paris (Blue Note)

3) Bud Powell: Tribute to Cannonball (Columbia) w/ Don Byas (great early 60's Bud and Klook)

4) Charlie Parker: Swedish Schnapps (Verve) w/ Klook on half and Max Roach on half

6) Monk: Plays Duke Ellington (Riverside) very subtle Klook on brushes mostly; great Monk trio date; with Oscar Pettiford also!

:tup:tup

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Klook in his Parisian prime can be heard on two sessions with Bud Powell recorded for French CBS and reissued by Columbia Legacy a few years ago in great sound:

A Portrait of Thelonious

A Tribute to Cannonball

c975216659n.jpgd02885sxk5n.jpg

All the Savoys are great, both leader and sideman dates. But "Kenny Clarke Meets The Detroit Jazzmen" is a model in intelligent small group playing: no two tracks have the same solo order. This is the issue with the bonus track:

c68302e6ok5.jpg

The two Classics CDs cover his early dates:

f79273arnrp.jpgf24889oon0b.jpg

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