ABSTRACT

American cornetist, regarded as the finest of his era, born in Woburn, Massachusetts. He moved to Toronto with his family in 1880. While a teenager he taught himself the cornet and violin, and played in various groups. He became a band director, and joined the faculty of the Toronto Conservatory. From 1893 to 1917 he was with the Sousa Band as soloist and assistant director. Then he led the Anglo-Canadian Leather Co. Band until 1923, before moving back to the U.S., where he conducted the Municipal Band in Long Beach, California, a position he held for 20 years. Clarke wrote an autobiography as well as various methods for the cornet. Clarke recorded first for Berliner, making seven-inch discs in Montreal during 1899-1903 as conductor and soloist, and he made a few Edison cylinders from 1903 to 1906. Most of his work was for Victor from October 1900 to 1908. He also made discs for Columbia in 1917, and Brunswick in 1923. In 1996, Crystal Records issued a CD of Clarke’s disc recordings made from 1900 to 1922 (Crystal 450). Clarke died in Long Beach, California, and is buried in the Congressional Cemetery, Washington D. C. Clarke’s daughter donated his papers to the University of Illinois. [Moogk 1975 gives a list of his records; Website for the Clarke Collection at the U of Illinois: https://door.library.uiuc.edu/sousa/clarke.htm.]

American jazz drummer, one of the developers of bebop, and a founding member of the Modern Jazz Quartet (1952). He settled in France in 1956, playing with Bud Powell and then organizing his own band with Francy Boland. His style was highly innovative in its departure from the steady bass drum beat and the introduction of rhythmic counterpoints to the soloists. “Epistrophy,” which he cowrote with Theolonious Monk, was recorded on Swing #224 in 1946.