Clark Terry, a St. Louis native and iconic jazz trumpeter whose career spanned seven decades, passed away Saturday night at the age of 94.
He entered hospice care last week due to advanced diabetes.
“He left us peacefully, surrounded by his family, students and friends,” his wife Gwen wrote on his Facebook page Saturday night.
Terry was a 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award honoree and ranks among the most prolific and admired jazz artists.
Quincy Jones and Miles Davis are among the musicians he mentored over the course of his career.
An American swing and bebop trumpeter and a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, Terry played with the likes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson and essentially every major name in jazz music.
Dizzy Gillespie often described him as the greatest trumpet player on earth.
Terry is one of the most prolifically recorded jazz musicians, having appeared on the results of 905 known recording sessions. In comparison, Louis Armstrong performed at 620 sessions, Harry “Sweets” Edison on 563, and Dizzy Gillespie on 501. He was the recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Only four other trumpet players have received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: Clark’s mentor Louis Armstrong, Terry’s mentee Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Carter.
He is best known to the mainstream as a soloist as part of the house band of NBC’s “The Tonight Show.” He was the first African-American staff musician with the network – which ultimately paved the way for The Roots, the all-black band that currently serves as “The Tonight Show” house band.
Born in St. Louis in 1920, Terry began playing trumpet while at Vashon High School. He continued as part of the U.S. Navy band during World War II.
After the war, he began his recording career with R&B saxophonist-singer Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson’s combo and saxophonist Charlie Barnet’s big band (alongside trumpeter Doc Severinsen, later the leader of the “Tonight Show” band).
He also worked as a sideman with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Stan Getz, Johnny Hodges, Gerald Wilson, Thelonious Monk, Billy Strayhorn, Sonny Rollins, Bud Powell and Ray Charles. Terry worked in the big band of leader-composer-arranger Quincy Jones, for whom he served as an early mentor (as he did with Miles Davis).
His later years were devoted to music education. He formed a Harlem youth band that was the blueprint for the famed “Jazz Mobile” program for young people in New York.
In addition to his Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Terry was the recipient of more than 250 awards, medals and honors. Among them is being named A National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1991 and earning honorary doctorate degrees from more than a dozen colleges and universities.
He was knighted in Germany and recipient of the French Order of Arts and Letters.
Terry also served as a Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department – an appointment that sent him on regular tours of the Middle East and Africa.
Terry released his autobiography “Clark” in 2011.
He is survived by his wife Gwen.
