One special moment from my weekend merits reporting here. I was down on the campus of the University of Illinois, where a local jazz dynasty was giving a concert. The legendary Clark Terry, 83-year-old trumpet player who I’m told played with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, the Tonight Show band and many others, was their special guest. After the concert, which I did not attend, there were some little receptions inside the concert hall, but outside in the grand foyer there was a little “after glow” concert with what I’m guessing is an up-and-coming local jazz band.
Well, the local upstarts were doing a fine job for perhaps 150 of us when the Clark Terry quietly rolled up in his wheelchair. He listened for a bit and then asked the young guy pushing his chair to get his horn. A few minutes later the Master started to play into what was already happening. The young guys on stage started to fade in amazement. Clark Terry motioned for them to play louder. They regained a bit of their composure and carried on, grinning hugely, for a couple of numbers in a flow that seemed totally unscripted, and unscriptable.
The best part of the whole thing was watching Clark Terry connect with the band leader, a young black trumpet player. Clearly this master was not playing for us in the audience. He was totally focused on the band and especially its leader: a sort of trumpet-mind transmission. The master’s mind was clean, and clear and bright. He touched his student deeply and directly. It changed the texture of the air in the room and I’m sure it changed the mind of that young trumpet. A great honor and a direct challenge, the one inseparable from the other. A lineage extending itself right before our eyes, and ears.
When Clark Terry put his horn away, the dazed and grinning band leader announced that they too were finished for the evening, as Mr. Terry had already expressed everything that could be expressed musically for that evening. Musically and more.