Celebrating Clark Terry's Centennial - "Clark in the Dark"

Happy Centennial to Clark Terry!

“Clark in the Dark”

Town Hall in New York City, October 12, 1962…

Charles Mingus was known to “workshop” but one concert particularly stood out. The live recording date was pushed up a whole month, and the mass of music didn’t get copied in time. Behind the curtains the copyists were frantically scrawling, rushing to deliver parts to musicians on stage, mid-performance. The exhibition went far over time and after two and a half hours the ensemble is still playing; stage hands surrounding, they take down the setup as the band forges on. In a final effort to discontinue, the lights are shut off and all goes dark. The band’s sensory perceptions lasts them only so long, and the music slowly crumbles…

In the dark, only one sound can be heard… Clark Terry, playing the melody to Duke Ellington’s “In a Mellow Tone”.

(Music from this performance later became what is known as EPITAPH, Mingus’s 4000-measure masterwork)