Jazz Articles about Mike Clark

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Drummer Mike Clark

by Peter Madsen
May 30, 2006

If you have a natural inclination toward the blues like I do, it will well up inside your life and pour out of your soul when the groove really hits. A really great blues can cripple you. For me, this is the big payoff. This is why most of us are still playing. That feeling is what we live for. It puts tears in your eyes, sends chills up your back, curls up your toes and tickles your funny bone. ...

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Mike Clark: Summertime

by Riel Lazarus
May 5, 2003

It's safe to say that drummer Mike Clark is most commonly associated with funk. Since his days as a member of Herbie Hancock's legendary Headhunters, Clark has been considered one of the foremost trapsmen of the genre. But funk is only a small part of what this veteran artist is capable of, and Summertime may finally spell the end to this unfortunate pigeonholing. As evidenced by his appearance last month at the Blue Note, Clark is every ...

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A Fireside Chat With Mike Clark

by AAJ Staff
March 7, 2003

When I was a kid, most my age were tuning in to watch Tootie and Blair on The Facts of Life or Gary Coleman say “Whatcha talkin' bout Willis." I would run home from school to catch What's Happening. Not only was the theme song funky, but Rerun (the best character ever on TV) was a dancing machine. And Rerun only got his groove on to the funk. This brings me to a Herbie Hancock record, Thrust, that opens with ...

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Mike Clark: Summertime

by Jim Santella
March 3, 2003

Pianist Billy Childs and drummer Mike Clark make a great rhythm team. Their modern mainstream journey through new originals and familiar favorites swings with a surging intensity that’s stirred gently – not shaken. It’s your daddy’s music in a new picture frame.

”Summertime,” a personal favorite, is treated to a harmonic makeover. Using darkness and mystery, a quintet with Clark, Childs, Chris Potter, Jack Walrath and James Genus presents this gem as it’s never been shown before. ...

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Mike Clark: Actual Proof

by Glenn Astarita
January 1, 2002

During his work with pianist, Herbie Hancock’s 70’s super- funk/fusion band “The Headhunters,” Mike Clark quickly acquired a reputation for his distinctly personal and altogether innovative slant on the art of funk drumming. His over-the-top and somewhat slithery approach to a funk groove proved to be a vital component to a group steered by Hancock’s equally pioneering “Arp and Moog” synthesizer excursions. However, Clark’s roots were founded in Be-Bop drumming among prior stints with the late, great, trumpeter, Woody Shaw, ...

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Suzanne Pittson: Blues And The Abstract Truth

by AAJ Staff
July 1, 2001

Billy Eckstine once said to an aspiring vocalist “Use your natural chops, never affect an accent that is not your own" and to her credit there is not one iota of affectation in Suzanne Pittson's vocal style. She sings with clarity and never loses the essence of the song with useless histrionics. Pittson's instrument is her voice. No Saxophones, Brasses, Strings or Percussion can duplicate the human voice, it is an entity unto itself capable of twists, turns and innuendo ...

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Mike Clark/Paul Jackson/Marc Wagnon: Conjunction

by AAJ Staff
May 1, 2001

As jazz/rock fusions go, Conjunction is something special: it completely refuses to fit into either category. The arrangements are too tight and the improvisation is too sophisticated to label this disc as rock, but the grooves are so backbeat-driven that one could never call it jazz. (Make a special exception for “The Unknown Shuffle," which is quite clearly exactly what it says it is: a blues shuffle.)

Drummer Mike Clark plays a dominant role defining the group sound on Conjunction. ...