Jazz, talent, friendship
On the surface, director Alan Hicks’ “Keep on Keepin’ On” is a music documentary with a more than worthy subject: Clark Terry, a nonagenarian jazz trumpeter revered by those in the know, but not well-known to the public at large.
Terry, or “CT” to those who love and respect him, has a most impressive resumé. In the 1940s and 1950s, he was featured in both Count Basie’s and Duke Ellington’s big bands, before moving on to play first with protege Quincy Jones and later with the Doc Severinsen-led Tonight Show Band.
The testimonials to Terry come from a heady array of luminaries. Jones explains that the elder horn player “was my idol, man. He was Miles’ idol.” (Terry says of young Miles Davis, “He was so thin, if he had turned sideways, they would have marked him absent! He was a skinny cat, man.”) Terry’s wife, Gwen, remembers Dizzy Gillespie’s saying her husband is “one of the greatest, if not the greatest, trumpeter who has ever lived.”
Musical practitioners and enthusiasts such as Arturo Sandoval and Bill Cosby chime in to heap praise on the horn player said to have “the happiest sound in jazz.” “Just about every single icon in jazz since Clark Terry has had to learn something from Clark Terry,” Philadelphia bassist Christian McBride says. And Herbie Hancock sums it up thusly: “When you hear Clark, you hear his life. Only a master can do that.”
Terry’s musical life would be documentary-worthy on its own. Growing up in St. Louis, he was so inspired by the Ellington band when he saw it at age 10 that he made a trumpet from parts at the city dump – a kerosene funnel, a rubber hose, a lead pipe.
He recalls an elder jazz player telling him that the secret to jazz was keeping both feet on the floor and wiggling your left ear. When he realized he was being jived, he vowed to share whatever knowledge about jazz he could gather, so besides a career that has included his signature nonsense scatting song “Mumbles,” he has distinguished himself through the decades as an educator. Along with Jones and Davis, his students have included Dianne Reeves, Terri Lyne Carrington and Wynton Marsalis.
His spirit remains indomitable throughout the movie, even as his struggles with diabetes render him increasingly infirm. But what really makes “Keep on Keepin’ On” such a heart-tugging, three-handkerchief crowd pleaser is that at heart, it’s a buddy movie. Hicks, himself a former student of Terry’s, focuses on the jazz master’s relationship with Justin Kauflin, a young pianist he begins tutoring at William Paterson University in New Jersey in 2005.
Along with being talented and determined, Kauflin is blind. As the film progresses and Terry’s health declines to the point where he can teach only from his sickbed at home in Arkansas, the elder statesman begins to lose his own sight, which increases the bond between the two.
“Keep On” is full of tender teaching exchanges, with Terry imparting wisdom about the jazz musician’s need for self-knowledge, humility and undying desire. The salty lessons are usually delivered in the wee hours, often with Terry hooked up to an oxygen tank as he shares good-natured encouragement for Kauflin, whose guide dog Candy seems to be listening as intently as he is.
Terry is the grandfatherly teacher we all wish to have. An enormously accomplished musician and inspirational spirit – he turned 94 last month – he’d like nothing better than to pass on all he has learned to others.
Kauflin knows how fortunate he is to be a favored student of a mentor who cares enough to lend him his lucky socks for a particularly high-pressure jazz piano competition. We root for him, knowing there could be nothing better than to make his teacher proud.