Still Thinking Of CT

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Clark Terry’s fans, friends and admirers around the world will no doubt be thinking of him, and listening to him, for a long time. Since his death on February 21 at the age of 94, CT’s vast legacy of recordings is coming in for extensive play on the air, and on home turntables, CD players, iPods, and mobile sound systems of all kinds. His bequest to listeners also includes many videos, a few of them from the memorable 1977 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

That year, impresario Norman Granz produced at Montreux a recreation or continuation of Jazz At The Philharmonic. Beginning in the 1940s Granz and JATP took mainstream jazz to millions throughout the United States and, ultimately, other parts of the world. At Montreux ’77, he not only revived JATP but presented several all-star combos, among them a sextet headed—nominally, at least—by Terry. That resulted in an album on Granz’s Pablo label, one of several recorded at that remarkable festival.

Many of the performances were also videotaped. Here’s CT playing flugelhorn with Oscar Peterson, piano; Milt Jackson, vibes; Ronnie Scott, tenor saxophone; Joe Pass, guitar; Niels Henning Ørsted-Pederson, bass; and Bobby Durham, drums. The piece is Luis Bonfa’s “Samba de Orfeu.”

Milt Jackson’s public expression was most often somber, but it’s no wonder that he broke into a big smile following that opening solo of Terry’s

Go here to see the variety of albums that Granz recorded at the Montreux Festival in 1977 and a couple of other years.