April 8–15, 1999

disc quicks

Clark Terry

Intimate Stories

(Challenge)

Clark Terry, at 78, is a grand old man of the flugelhorn and trumpet, but on Intimate Stories he sounds less like an elder statesman than an unusually seasoned young man with a horn. After all these years, he maintains a heartbreakingly sweet tone in solos simultaneously informed by joy, melancholy and a razor-sharp curiosity. Terry delivers on the promise of this disc's title, telling a series of delightful tales in a trio outing with veterans Red Mitchell on bass and Horace Parlan on piano. The alternately creeping and running "Brahms' Lullaby" is filled with childlike innocence and joy, and "Out of Nowhere," "Blue Moon" and "The Days of Wine and Roses" are about a lifelong romance with sublime melodies. "The Perils of Pauline" includes a too-short minute of Terry's old "mumbles" routine, nonsensical scat-like vocalizations originally meant to satirize ancient, unintelligible blues singers. Comic swagger, charisma, tonal purity, vigorous improvisations—Terry's got it all, even at this late date.

—Philip Booth