Nicknamed “Klook,” percussionist Kenny Clarke was an innovator who changed the way future jazz drummers would play set forever after. He pioneered the use of the ride cymbal for keeping time, and the use of the bass drum for “dropping bombs” instead of playing “four on the floor” as was common during the swing era. Kenny Clarke was born January 9, 1914 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Clarke was orphaned around age 5 and began to play drums at the urging of one of his teachers at the Coleman Industrial Home for Negro Boys where he lived. He turned professional at age 17 and moved to New York City four years later. In 1939 he was playing in Teddy Hill’s band along with friend Dizzy Gillespie. While in Hill's band he performed at the Apollo Theater and at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

By the early 1940s Clarke was the house drummer at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, the site of countless after-hours jam sessions where bebop was born. These jam sessions often included Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Christian, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, among others.

In 1943 Kenny Clarke was drafted into the U.S. Army. He married vocalist Carmen McRae in 1944 during basic training and subsequently went AWOL for four months. After his capture he was sent to Europe where he was a part of Special Services and provided musical entertainment for the troops. Upon his discharge in 1946 Clarke joined Dizzy Gllespie’s big band for eight months where he worked in the rhythm section that would eventually go on to form the beginnings of the Modern Jazz Quartet. He also worked regularly on 52nd Street in New York and with Fats Navarro, Sonny Stitt, Tadd Dameron and Coleman Hawkins. Clarke played on some of the sessions for Miles Davis and Gil Evans’ “Birth of the Cool” and participated in the first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954.

Kenny Clarke moved to Paris in 1956 where he regularly worked with both French jazz musicians and touring artists from the United States like Davis, Stan Getz and Dexter Gordon. He also performed on Davis’ groundbreaking soundtrack for the movie “Elevator to the Gallows.” In 1961 he joined with Belgian pianist Francy Boland to form the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band which was one of the most respected groups of the era. Clarke’s drumming was subtle, but important to the sound of the band.

Clarke suffered a heart attack in 1975 but was able to return to performing after a period of recovery. He taught briefly at the University of Pittsburgh in his hometown in 1979 and passed away after a second heart attack on January 26, 1985. Kenny Clarke was named an NEA Jazz Master in 1983 and to the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988.

Here is a link to a video of Kenny Clarke performing on Italian television:

"BEBOP"