Kenny Clarke

Biography

At the beginning of the Years 1940, it is the beater of the Minton' S playhouse (box of jazz to New York and thus takes part in many jam session S (of which with Cousin Joe…) which gave rise to the modern jazz. It was one of the pioneers of the use of the Cymbale " ride" to hold the rate/rhythm. Previously the beaters used for the principal rate/rhythm the clear Caisse (which it called " digging coal" - " shovel with charbon") supported by the Large case. With Clarke, the rate/rhythm was marked by the wrinkle, and the large case and the clear case were used for supporting it. It is of this fact the inventor of the modern technology of the battery jazz known as of the " bomb drumming" , which consists in marking interventions with the clear case and/or the large case while the wrinkle and the cymbals charleston mark the tempo.

Clarke was founding member of the Modern Jazz Four-bit byte (called at the beginning Milt Jackson Quartet) in 1951. It also took part in many sessions for Savoy of which it was the principal beater. Connie Kay replaced it in 1955 in the MJQ.

Starting from 1956, it settled definitively in France where it married with a Frenchwoman and had children. He regularly played with the American musicians of passage to Paris. It formed a trio (" amongst other things; The Three Bosses") with Bud Powell and Pierre Michelot. Later in 1961, it created a full orchestra with the pianist Francy Boland composed European musicians and American musicians expatriates. This full orchestra, created on the initiative of the Italian producer Gigi Campi , lasted eleven years. Kenny Clarke belonged to the Quatuor with organ of the clarinettist Jean-Christian Michel during 4 years.

It also created an Academy of music in Parisian suburbs where it taught the battery.

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