Search - Kenny Clarke, Francis Boland :: Clarke-Boland Big Band

Along with Max Roach and Art Blakey, Kenny "Klook" Clarke (1914-85) forms the Holy Trinity of bebop drummers. In the 1940s, his bass drum accents--referred to by musicians as "dropping bombs"--freed drummers from merely keeping time and set the pattern for coming generations. Clarke laid down the groove in Dizzy Gillespie's big band and cofounded the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1952. He left the MJQ in '55, settled in Paris, and formed his own big band with French pianist Francy Boland. As this 1964 reissue shows, the lively ensemble of European and expatriate-American musicians, including English tenor saxophonist Ronnie Scott and Duke Ellington bassist Jimmy Woode, swings with authority and ease. Ironically, Clarke takes no solos, but he's driving the band with his in-the-pocket beats. Overall, the Gillespie influence is strong. Trumpeters Benny Bailey and Idrees Sulieman, both ex-Diz bandmates, playfully duel on the boppish Cole Porter tune "Get Out of Town" and Boland's ditty, "Old Stuff." Sahib Shihab's fiery, bi-tonal flutework and Billy Mitchell's rawboned sax sound grace the uptempo "Long Note Blues (Here is Cecco Beppe)." Clarke's "Sonor" is a tasty, hard-bop number, and Boland's "Speedy Reeds" recalls the heyday of New York's 52nd Street. The Latin showcase "Om Mani Padme Hum," with percussionist Sadi, flashes back to Gillespie's pioneering collaboration with the Afro-Cuban conguero Chano Pozo, with Kenny Clarke moving and grooving musicians and audiences alike, which is what a great drummer does. --Eugene Holley Jr.