Nonagenarian Clark Terry's autobiography contains just about every name in the jazz world since the 1930s, when he patched together his first trumpet out of old garden hose and chewing gum scavenged from a junkyard. He played with all of them, from the big bands of Basie and Ellington to the small combos of Milt Jackson and Bob Brookmeyer, and he seems to remember every sideman in every group--nicknames and all. The book's selected discography alone reads like a who's who of modern jazz, with nearly 400 entries.
Terry is a versatile musician. Although he brought the 19th-century flugelhorn into more common use, he is equally adept on the trumpet, sometimes playing both, holding one in each hand and alternating riffs on each. Most famously, perhaps, he popularized scat singing on "Mumbles," his off-the-cuff improvisation from the legendary 1964 album Oscar Peterson Trio + One. The chapters of his memoir become their own improvisations as one memory keys off another, pulling you into the "set" as if you were sitting at a front-row table, until he circles back to the story at hand.
His long career, however, is about much more than just playing his horn. Many consider Terry the father of jazz education. His goal was to show young musicians how "to find ten thousand ways to do things with their instruments... how to make it on the road, no matter what... how to get that hump in their backs." His autobiography shows where determination and "hump" can really take you. Terry did it all. --Bruce Jacobs