Klook Is The Man!

Footage of Kenny Clarke is fairly rare so I was pretty excited to see this one pop up recently.

Here's Kenneth Spearman Clarke, commonly known as "Klook" (and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam), playing with J.J.Johnson, Sonny Stitt and Howard McGhee from a televised 1964 tribute to Charlie Parker on "My Little Suede Shoes":



Has anybody seen the rest of this program???

Notice how Klook is only using one ride cymbal in that clip and that's all he needs! Sometimes it's a nice challenge to show up at a gig with just one cymbal and to try and make it work (besides that's one less cymbal and stand to carry around, haha!)

And of course, Kenny's immaculate cymbal beat speaks for itself. As far as I'm concerned, we are still trying to chase after that one!