The first bebop drummer, Kenny Clarke (1914-1985) pioneered the syncopated pulse that eventually became the dna of modern music. This four disc set includes his eight ground breaking albums.
From 1955, Clarke is teamed with MJQ alumni Percy Heath/b and Milt Jackson/bib as well as West Coasters Frank Morgan/as and Gerald Wiggins/p among others for a deep deg of “Bag’s Groove” and Clarke’s famous “Telefunken Blues”. The same year has Clarke with saxist/ arranger Ernie Wilkins, as well as Hank Jones/p, Cecil Payne/bs, Wendell Marshall/b, George Barrow/ts and Eddie Bert/tb for clever charts of “Oz the Wizzard” and “Cute Tomato”. There is an album that covers the years 1938-1959 with the likes of Benny Bailey, Clarke Terry Lucky Thompson and Europeans Hubert Fol, Pierre MIchelot and Martial Solal. A 1955 session has Clarke hiring a very young Cannonball and Nat Adderley for a gig at the Café Bohemia, and along with Horace Silver/p Paul Chambers/p, Donald Byrd/tp and Jerome Richardson/wwinds, the team sizzles on “Bohemia After Dark” and glows on a beautiful “We’ll Be Together Again”.
A real rare one is an album with Byrd/tp, Ronnie Ball/p, John LaPorta/as and Wendell Marshall/b for a dark “Yesterdays” and full magma of “Volcano”. A 1961 album has him teamed with Belgian composer and pianist Francy Boland at a gig in Cologne, eventually leading up to the creation of their big band. Here, a “kinda big” band of eight gents give warm renditions of “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise” and “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” as well as originals like “Bassa Cuite”. The big band comes to fruition in a late 1961 session with a post bop band that features not only Boland’s clever charts such as “The Styx” and “Los Bravos” but James Moody’s fun “Last Train From Overbrook”. The followup includes ringers like Ronnie Scott/ts, Billy Mitchell/ts and Benny Bailey/tp with Boland tapping into his inner Monk on “Get Out Of Town”. A drummer that changed the times, and changed with them.