Correction: Clark Terry, a jazz musician who died Saturday, joined The Tonight Show Band in 1960 when Jack Paar was the show’s host. Terry was part of the band for 12 years, during which time Johnny Carson took over as host. This article incorrectly stated who was host when Terry joined.
Clark Terry, a pioneering jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and jazz educator who relocated to Pine Bluff late in life, died Saturday at age 94.
It was announced on Terry's website last week that he had entered hospice care in Pine Bluff because of his advanced diabetes.
"Our beloved Clark Terry has joined the big band in heaven, where he'll be singing and playing with the angels," his wife, Gwen, wrote on the website Saturday. "Clark has known and played with so many amazing people in his life. We will miss him every minute of every day, but he will live on through the beautiful music and positivity that he gave to the world."
Terry was a Grammy award-winning Jazz Age musician. He played with big-band leaders Duke Ellington and Count Basie and is said to have had an influence on jazz musicians who followed him, such as Miles Davis and Quincy Jones.
During his jazz career, which spanned more than 70 years, Terry performed for eight U.S. presidents and served as a jazz ambassador for the U.S. State Department, playing in the Middle East and Africa. In 1960, he joined the band on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, becoming the first black staff musician for NBC.
He was born in St. Louis and was later part of the jazz scenes in Chicago and New York. He moved to Pine Bluff, where his wife was born, in 2006.
Terry taught jazz to young musicians as an adjunct music professor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He traveled across the nation to set up jazz education programs, and students from around the world flew in to receive lessons from him.
He received dozens of awards and honorary doctorates, and in 2010 he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Keep on Keepin' On, a documentary about Terry and his relationship with a young pianist, was released last year.
Wynton Marsalis, a jazz and classical musician and Grammy award winner, visited Terry at Jefferson Regional Medical Center on Dec. 8 with jazz vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
The group was in Fayetteville for a stop on its national tour and had planned to take a trip to Pine Bluff for Terry's birthday, which was Dec. 14. After learning Terry had been admitted to the hospital, the group decided to play for him. Marsalis wrote about the experience on his website the next day.
Marsalis said they played some Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Count Basie and ended with their own version of "Happy Birthday." He said Terry's "warmth and optimism" made him want to be "part of the world of jazz."
"He lived as a jazzman, full of soul and sophistication, sass, grit and mother wit, and he made us want to become real jazz musicians," Marsalis wrote. "We were full of emotion because his presence reminded us of how much of himself he had given to the world, this country, our music, our instrument and each of us individually."
Metro on 02/23/2015