Sat Mar 6
Mike Clark Boptet with Patrice Rushen & Eddie Henderson
9PM / $45 - $55 | $4.16 - $4.86 Fees Get Tickets
Mike Clark Boptet with Patrice Rushen
“[Mike’s] a great jazz drummer—and he hasn’t lost any of the stuff that he brought from Oakland… The solo he played on the album Thrust, on the song “Actual Proof,” is one of the best drum solos on any of my albums.” - Herbie Hancock
Mike Clark, drums
Patrice Rushen, piano
Eddie Henderson, drums
Craig Handy, saxophones
Alex Claffy, bass
Mike Clark gained worldwide recognition as one of America’s foremost jazz and funk drummers while playing with Herbie Hancock in the early seventies. The Headhunters, the legendary jazz-funk ensemble co-led by percussionist Bill Summers and drummer Mike Clark formed around Herbie Hancock's classic recordings, Head Hunters, in 1973, Thrust in 1974 and Man-Child in 1975. His incisive playing on Hancock’s “Actual Proof” garnered him an international cult following and influenced generations of drummers. While Mike digs the funk, he consider jazz his first love, and playing that music is what feeds his soul.
NEA Jazz Master Patrice Rushen is a three-time, Grammy nominee and award-winning musician and composer who is also one of the most sought after artists in the music industry. The “Forget Me Nots" artist was the first female musical director for many of the entertainment industry's top award shows, which include the Grammy Awards, the Emmy Awards, the People's Choice Awards, the NAACP Image Awards and HBO's "Comic Relief V." Considered one of the world's top jazz pianists, she has performed with many artists such as Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Prince, Nancy Wilson, Ndugu Chancler, Carlos Santana, Christian McBride and Lee Ritenour.
Eddie Henderson gained international recognition as the lead trumpet voice for Herbie Hancock's iconic Mwandishi Band. His wildly diverse and accomplished career began during his first trumpet lessons as a young boy that were given by Louis Armstrong. It was a connection made through the musical careers of Henderson’s parents who were in the entertainment business. A native of New York City, Henderson relocated with his family to San Francisco, and drew the praise of Miles Davis, a friend of the Henderson family who came to know Eddie while visiting his parents during tour stops in town.
From the time he arrived in New York at age 23 in 1986, saxophonist Craig Handy was acknowledged as a musician with big, burly tenor sound, sharp wit, and above all, individuality. Over the years he would breath life into those accolades through a number of important associations: holding his own on the front line of legendary bebop drummer Roy Haynes' band, working with South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, weaving sensuous obbligati behind Betty Carter on the kind of tunes most young artist are presumed not to understand, and has performed with jazz luminaries including Art Blakey, Wynton Marsalis, and Roy Haynes. Handy gained international attention in the 1980s as a standout member of drummer Elvin Jones’s Jazz Machine and the Mingus Dynasty Band.
Alex Claffy is a Philadelphia-born bassist, bandleader, and vocalist who has quickly established himself as a prominent figure in the modern jazz scene. Praised for his formidable technique and musicality, he has collaborated with an impressive roster of jazz luminaries, such as Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Wallace Roney, Chris Botti, Sean Jones, Joey DeFrancesco, Ron Carter and many more.
9PM / $45 - $55 | $4.16 - $4.86 Fees Get Tickets