55. Whirlwinds Purchased

Not only did Gwen make it to the gig just fine, but she caused a lot of rubbernecking with her short sexy black dress. Rosalie Soladar, Al Grey's lady, took a picture of us that night that is still one of my favorite photos.

Things were great except for the fact that my eyes were starting to give me more hell. Everywhere I looked, it looked like somebody had turned all the lights way down low. Even though the dressing room had bright bulbs all around the mirror, everything seemed dark. To add to my misery, my back pain was getting worse. I tried to fix it with more aspirin, but that did as much good as trying to paddle a canoe with a baseball bat.

The concert was a tribute to Ella, and it was incredible. Ella completely stole the show! After spending the evening in the audience listening to us play and receiving all those emotional tributes, she decided that she wanted to sing. She stepped up on stage and took a mike; then she called for Joe Williams and me to come back on stage. We did a “Mumbles” threesome. The standing ovation seemed like it would go on forever!

When Gwen found me among the fans and musicians backstage, she said, “Clark, I cried so much during the show, and especially at the end. I wished I'd known about all of these great musicians. I feel horrible that I've never seen Ella or Joe or Lena or those other legends perform in person until tonight. You all were fantastic! I'm going to do all I can to educate people about jazz.”

I thought, Bingo!

When Gwen got back to Texas, she arranged for her friend Maxine Ragsdale to take charge of her office, and then she got an executive-on-loan grant from IBM. I wanted her to move in with me, but she wasn't ready for that yet. At least she was able to travel. First, I took her to Don and Sue Miller's Paradise Jazz Party in Scottsdale, Arizona. Then I arranged for her to meet me in Nice, France, for George Wein's Parade du Jazz, better known as the Nice Jazz Festival.

She had to fly to Paris and make it to Nice on her own, but she aced it.

Miles was at the festival. I took her over to where he was performing; it was in one of the three venues there. We stood in the wings backstage. When he got wind that I was there, he walked over to where we were. We talked for a few minutes and he invited me to sit in. But I had to get back to my own gig. Gwen was totally digging all the jazz legends.

She said, “It's a shame that all we're taught about in American schools is classical music. Not a drop about jazz. It just isn't fair!”

She kept bugging me about the progress on my autobiography, said she wanted to see it. I said, “I've got that all under control. Allen Scott is working on it. It's coming along.” I told her that Allen was a freelance writer that I'd met while I was with the Tonight Show. We'd hung out together and talked about my life and career. He'd written an article about me for one of the jazz magazines. Real intellectual cat. Wrote for Navy Times newspaper.

She wanted to know more, and the only thing that cooled her questions out was when I agreed that she could do some research, ask me a few questions about my career, “to help Allen.”

After we left Nice, we toured a few more French towns where I did mostly one-nighters. Then we headed back home.

A few weeks later, we went to see Dr. Cheryl Kaufman about my vision. Dr. Kaufman said, “If you hadn't come in today, Clark, you might have completely lost the vision in your left eye.” That scared the shit out of me! All the times I'd been too busy to see someone about my eyes were coming back to haunt me. Now I was sitting in an office getting ready for emergency laser surgery to stop the bleeding behind my retina so it wouldn't be “curtains” for my eye!

Thank God that Gwen had put her foot down and demanded that I go to the ophthalmologist. After that, I promised her that my schedule would include more time for my health. Another one of the hundreds of reasons that I had to keep her in my life.

She was a great help to me, taking over responsibilities. Flight arrangements, negotiations and confirmations for gigs, phone calls, fan mail, wardrobe maintenance, and a bunch of other stuff. I felt like a big load had been lifted off my shoulders. And I loved her cooking!

The updates she made to the house were hip—new kitchen cabinets, new refrigerator, and something I'd never had, a dishwasher. She even had me helping her to clean out the freezer in my basement. Then she changed one of my guest rooms into her office, with filing cabinets, a computer, and a printer. Next thing I knew, she replaced my two rotary dial telephones with the latest two-line, pushbutton model. Had a phone put in her office, too. Man!

Before I could catch my breath, the master bedroom got an overhaul. Then she opened up the storage bins in my office and dusted off all of my awards. She nailed them up on the living room, dining room, and kitchen walls. All down the hallway. She was so proud of my career. That made me feel like I'd hit the jackpot in Atlantic City!

Her sons joined us in November for a New York recording session with Chesky Records at the Village Gate. The band was hot, and it was a real tight set. We had Jimmy Heath on tenor, Don Friedman on piano, Marcus McLaurine on bass, and Kenny Washington on drums. Paquito D'Rivera sat in with us on sax. We all had a fabulous time.

The audience had been really patient while we were taping and doing retakes, so at the end of the set I created a new tune that they could participate in. I named it, “Hey, Mr. Mumbles.” They'd sing, “Hey, Mr. Mumbles, what did you say?” Then I'd answer them in the “Mumbles” language. They cracked up each time I answered them. Everybody loved it!

In early December I did a live session for TCB Records at the jazz club Q4 in Rheinfelden, Switzerland, with the George Robert Quartet. It was an incredible session, with George on alto, Dado Moroni on piano, Isla Eckinger on bass, and Peter Schmidlin on drums. Those cats were unbelievable! It was a gas! Man! They even had a surprise pre-birthday celebration for me.

Milt Hinton happened to be on the same plane with us coming back from Switzerland. Milt and I would run into each other from time to time—either coming from or going to gigs, and sometimes we were booked on the same gig. We weren't seatmates on that flight, but when we landed in New York we spent a few minutes catching up on things. Reminiscing about those days when I got the Harlem youth band together and bought instruments for some of them; how Milt taught them in my Manhattan office; how well most of them were doing and how that whole scene planted the seed for Jazz Mobile.

Eventually, we hugged each other and I said, “See you down the road a piece, Judge,” which was the nickname I called him. “And give my love to Mona.” She was his wife—great lady. Used to travel a lot with him. Everybody loved her. He always smiled when I called him Judge, and then he'd say, “Thirty days!” which was his “sentence time” for me as if we were in court and he was a real judge.

On December 14th, the University of New Hampshire was throwing a big seventieth-birthday bash for me. My relationship with UNH went back to the mid-′70s, when I'd taught there. I'd taken their jazz band with me to the Montreux Jazz Festival in ′76. My first honorary doctorate was from UNH back in ′78. And we'd hosted the Clark Terry Jazz Festival and other events there annually.

Dave Seiler was the head of the jazz department there. He had placed a rocking chair on stage for me because he knew about my back. So I rocked in that chair, thinking that I was part of the show that Dave and I had planned. Hip local musicians and students in the Clark Terry 70th Birthday Celebration Big Band. But then, as I sat there rocking, out walks Milt Hinton! I was shocked. We had seen each other only a few days before, and he never said a word to me about coming to UNH. I was truly bowled over. We did a tune together, and he pulled the strings on that bass as only he could do. I loved it!

Now, Milt's surprise appearance would have been enough for me. But that wasn't all that Dave, Paul Verrette, and Gwen had concocted. Paul was a professor at UNH and he was very involved with the jazz scene there. A great friend. One by one, more friends came out and played. James Williams, Louie Bellson, Hal Crook, and Gray Sargent. I couldn't believe what was happening. The cherry on the cake was when one of my students, Ryan Kisor, walked out on stage, followed by Herb Pomeroy and Doc Cheatham! Doc was eighty-five years old at the time, and he played “Just Friends” so beautifully. They were all fantastic!

After the show, they brought out a huge cake and I blew out the candles. Then they handed me the mike. I could barely talk because it had been so overwhelming to see so many friends, both on stage and in the audience. They had come from near and far to wish me a happy birthday.

A few days after that, Norman Granz gave me an unforgettable gift: a luxurious trip to California, where Oscar Peterson was getting married to a lady named Kelly. That was the first time I'd ever flown on an all-first-class plane, complete with a chef carving filet mignon in the aisle. It was wild!

When we got to Beverly Hills, Norman and his wife, Greta, put us up at ĽHermitage. Talk about posh! Complimentary caviar and limousines. Everything, including the wedding, was unforgettable. It was beautiful to see how happy O.P. was with his new wife.

All in all, my seventieth birthday was probably one of my best birthdays ever! The only drag was that my back pain was talking louder and louder, making it more of a hassle for me to fly and gig. Plus, the other eye was giving me problems.

I decided that maybe it was time to slow down a little. Maybe buy a nice home in Dallas, since Gwen was still living there sometimes. Nice international airport, nice weather. Do my business from there.

The next year, Gwen and I bought a waterfront home on Lake Ray Hubbard in Heath, Texas. It was a dream home for both of us. Lake views from the master bedroom, living room, kitchen, and den. I'd always loved the water, and I was eager to buy a boat and do some fishing. We got the keys to 626 North Sorita Circle on May 6th of ′91. As we walked through the house—our house—for the first time, I kept looking at Gwen's smiles. I was thinking of all the fun we were going to have.

Duty called, though, so I left her there on the 9th to fly to New York to do a guest appearance on the Joe Franklin television show in Manhattan. A talk show with guests, similar to the Tonight Show.

I'm glad I still have my personal calendar pages from those days, to help me remember all the things that went down at that time. Life sure was hectic!

On the 10th, I taught a master class at Princeton University in the afternoon, then played at Struggles nightclub in New Jersey that night. Then next day, I performed at Rutgers University in the evening and later on played again at Struggles.

On the 13th, Gwen flew to New York to join me when I received the Beacons of Jazz Award along with Billy Eckstine at the New School in Manhattan. Two days later we flew to Vienna for a tour put together by Boško Petrović; I played a concert there on the 16th; another in Graz, Austria, on the 17th; and flew to Zurich on the 19th to make a connecting flight back home.

On the 22nd I returned to Bayside for more laser surgery on my eye. The next day, I got my tooth recapped, then we went to St. Peter's Church for a gig that Pastor John Gensel organized, which was a tribute to Gary McFarland. We'd all been shocked to learn that Gary had been poisoned in a bar. Real nice cat, Gary. Hell of a musician. Died in ′71.

On the 24th we flew to Columbia, South Carolina, for the annual jazz festival there, which was coordinated by Johnny Helms. Three days later it was back to Bayside for more laser surgery and more dental work. A Queensboro Community College gig was next, on the 31st, with Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Marcus McLaurine, Sylvia Cuenca, and John Campbell, with vocalists Carrie Smith and Irene Reid. After that, we took a break to answer mail, pay bills, and do personal errands. On June 6th, we jetted to Dallas for a couple of days of down time.

On the 9th, it was back to work, with a concert in Mt. Vernon, New York, followed by more dental work on the 10th and a rehearsal at the Blue Note with Lionel Hampton on the 11th, for a gig on the 12th. That gig was recorded, and it was fantastic! There were two albums made from our performances there, with Lionel on vibes, Sweets Edison and me on trumpets, James Moody and Buddy Tate on tenor sax, and Al Grey on trombone. The rhythm section was Hank Jones on piano, Milt Hinton on bass, and Grady Tate on drums. The afternoon of the 13th, I did a performance at Charlie D's in New York with a doctor who was a good drummer. Bob Litwak was his name. He played in an annual gig with some of his friends who were also doctors, and I was their guest artist. They had a nice sound and we all had a lot of fun.

I left Gwen in New York and flew to Birmingham, Alabama, for a concert there and then continued on to Iowa to another one of my wonderful student encounters—“C.T.'s Band Camp,” which was run by Cliff “Wheels” McMurray—for a few days.

On the 20th I was back in New York, where Gwen went with me to an afternoon rehearsal at the Manhattan School of Music for a gig coming up on July 1st and 2nd; then later that evening we went to a sound check at Carnegie Hall for a concert that night with Mel Tormé—a great concert.

Gwen and I flew to Oklahoma for a fantastic five days at “Clark Terry's 1991 All-American Jazz Festival” at the University of Central Oklahoma, until the 28th. This was one of Bob Montgomery's productions and, as usual, we all had a ball. An absolute gas!

When we got back to New York and I went to see Dr. Hoffman on the 29th about that pain in my back, he suggested that I should have a CAT scan and an MRI. Since I was booked so heavily, I postponed the tests. I wasn't too interested in doing them anyway, since I'd heard that the MRI procedure was “Claustrophobia City.” Just the thought of being confined inside of a metal contraption scared the hell out of me!

After the two-day gig at the Manhattan School of Music, Gwen and I flew to Amsterdam for another George Wein tour. I gigged in Holland for Hans Loonstijn's Jazz Party on the 5th of July, then started on the first part of George's tour, playing in The Hague on the 6th; Strasbourg, France, on the 7th; and Cossiac and Bordeaux on the 8th. After a few days off in a hotel on the Riviera, I did the Nice Jazz Festival on the 14th and 15th, and then we continued with the rest of George's tour, heading to Romatheul on the 16th; Montreux, Switzerland, on the 17th; Pori, Finland, on the 18th and 19th; Gordes, France, on the 20th; and back to Nice on the 21st. After a brief stop at the house in Bayside, we flew to Los Angeles where I had a gig at the Catalina Club on the 23rd and 24th.

Gwen said she loved traveling with me. I had wondered if she'd have the stamina for it, but she was hanging right in there. My friends around the world loved her. They thought we made a nice couple. This was all a routine schedule for me, and normally it wouldn't have been a problem because I was doing what I loved. But I was catching hell because it felt like a fire was slowly spreading in my back.