Kenny Clarke

Kenny Clarke (January 2, 1914 – January 26, 1985), born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a major innovator of the bebop style of drumming. As the house drummer at Minton's Playhouse in the early 1940s, he participated in the after hours jams that led to the birth of Be-Bop, which in turn led to modern jazz. While in New York, he played with the major innovators of the emerging bop style, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Curly Russell and others, as well as musicians of the prior generation, including Sidney Bechet. He spent his later life in Paris.

Early career

Clarke was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1914. Coming from a musical family, he studied multiple instruments, including vibes and trombone, as well as music theory and composition, while still in high school. As a teenager, Clarke played in the bands of Leroy Bradley and Roy Eldridge. He toured around the Midwest for several years with the Jeter-Pillars band, which also featured bassist Jimmy Blanton and guitarist Charlie Christian. By 1935, Clarke was more frequently in New York, where he eventually moved. He worked in groups led by Edgar Hayes and Lonnie Smith, and began developing the rhythmic concepts that would later define his contribution to the music.

Clarke

Clarke is an Anglo-Irish surname which means "clerk". The surname is of English and Irish origin but the original word comes from Latin for clericus. There are some surname variants, including Clark and Clerk.Clarke is also uncommonly chosen as a given name.

Irish surname origin

Clarke is a popular surname in Ireland. The Irish version of the surname is believed to have come from County Galway and County Antrim and spread to County Donegal and County Dublin. The name is derived from the Irish Gaelic sept O'Cleirigh, meaning "clerk".

English surname origin

Clarke as well as Clark is also a widespread surname in England. The English version comes from Anglo-Saxon origin and was used in the Middle Ages for the name of a scribe or secretary. The word "clerc" came from the pre 7th Century Olde English "Cler(e)c" (meaning priest) originally denoted to a member of a religious order only, but later grew rapidly outside the religious order. In the Middle Ages virtually the only people who could read and write were members of the religious order, making the word heavily associated with literacy. Thus the surname became a popular term for a literate man, particularly for the professional secretary and the scholar. The English surnames "Clarke" and "Clark" are both spelling variations of the surname "Clerk".

Kenny

Kenny is a surname, a given name, and a diminutive of several different given names.

In Ireland, the surname is an Anglicisation of the Irish Ó Cionnaith, sometimes spelled Ó Cionnaoith. It is also a name from Waterford Cork which derives from MacKenny.

One bearer of the name was Cainnech of Aghaboe, better known in English as Saint Canice - a sixth-century Irish priest and missionary, after whom the city and county of Kilkenny is also named. The Irish form Cill Chainnigh means "church of Canice".

It is thought that the Ó Cionnaith sept was part of the Uí Maine kingdom, based in Connaught. Within this area, the name is associated traditionally with counties Galway and Roscommon.

Kenny is ranked at number 76 in the list of the most common surnames in Ireland. Other spellings include O'Kenny, Kenney, Kennie, Kinnie and Kinny.

Kenny is most often used as a diminutive form of Kenneth and Ken but it is also used as a given name.

People named Kenny

Given name

United States

Coordinates: 40°N 100°W / 40°N 100°W / 40; -100

The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major territories and various possessions. The 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. At 3.8 million square miles (9.842 million km²) and with over 320 million people, the country is the world's third or fourth-largest by total area and the third most populous. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The geography and climate of the United States are also extremely diverse, and the country is home to a wide variety of wildlife.

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. Big Bands evolved with the times and continue to today. A big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, stage band, jazz orchestra, and dance band are also used to refer to this type of ensemble. This does not, however, mean that each one of these names is technically correct for naming a 'big band" specifically.

In contrast to smaller jazz combos, in which most of the music is improvised, or created spontaneously, music played by big bands is highly "arranged", or prepared in advance and notated on sheet music. The music is traditionally called 'charts'. Improvised solos may be played only when called for by the arranger.

History and style

There are two distinct periods in the history of popular bands. Beginning in the mid-1920s, big bands, then typically consisting of 10–25 pieces, came to dominate popular music. At that time they usually played a form of jazz that involved very little improvisation, which included a string section with violins, which was dropped after the introduction of swing in 1935. A few bands also had violas and cellos, usually one or two along with them. The dance form of jazz was characterized by a sweet and romantic melody. Orchestras tended to stick to the melody as it was written and vocals would be sung (often in a tenor voice) and in tune with the melody.