A Tribeca music highlight: Clark Terry keeps on keepin' on

The hot ticket I wish I had at the Tribeca Film Festival was the first public screening on April 19 of Keep on Keepin’ On, Alan Hicks’ documentary about the remarkable 93-year-old jazz trumpeter Clark Terry, since the movie was followed by a mini-concert by Herbie Hancock, Dianne Reeves, Roy Hargrove, Jon Baptiste and Terry’s protégé, Justin Kauflin. But I’m still thankful I got to see the film the next day—it’s an absolute delight, and moving and inspirational to boot.

Terry has played with the titans of jazz, performing with both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras. His first student was a skinny 12-year-old named Quincy Jones; Miles Davis was another acolyte. Years later, Terry would leave Ellington for Jones’ newly formed ensemble. Arguably his widest exposure came as a member of the “Tonight Show” band in the 1960s; in fact, he was the first African-American staff musician hired at the National Broadcasting Company.

His style was called “the happiest sound in jazz”—he played authentic blues but still you smiled. And he perfected a mumbled form of scat singing nonsense words that tickled audiences worldwide.

Director Hicks, a drummer and a former student of Terry’s, filmed the musician from age 89 into his 90s, with particular focus on his close relationship with Kauflin, an extremely affable, blind 23-year-old pianist with an uncanny knack for picking up on Terry’s lively vocal riffs. Over the course of the film, Terry’s diabetes takes a toll, impacting his eyesight and limiting his mobility, but his spirit remains irrepressible. Meanwhile, the otherwise confident and virtuosic Kauflin struggles with his own insecurities and overthinking whenever faced with a potentially career-changing musical competition. Terry’s plainspoken advice: “If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking until you do suck-seed.”

The warm bond between this cheerful young man, who sincerely feels the loss of his sight is nothing compared to the hard knocks experienced by the greats of jazz, and this wise and witty musical legend is a beautiful thing to behold. Terry’s loving and supportive wife Gwen is also a strong presence in the film, and clearly a major factor in his upbeat outlook on life.

Late in the doc, Kauflin’s fortunes change when none other than Quincy Jones, Terry’s onetime pupil (and a producer of this film), visits the convalescing trumpeter. Terry has Kauflin play for Jones, the young protégé in effect auditioning for the protégé-turned-starmaker. And there’s no doubt Kauflin deserved to be on that Tribeca stage with those other jazz greats.

Keep on Keepin’ On is a long overdue biography of a music icon, but it’s something much more: a joyous and poignant tale of intergenerational nurturing.
—Kevin Lally