John Clark (musician)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Clark is an American jazz horn player and composer.

As one of only a handful of horn players proficient in non-classical genres, Clark has performed or recorded with a wide variety of musicians. These include Glen Velez, Jerome Harris, Anthony Jackson, Linda Ronstadt, B. B. King, Oliver Lake, Ornette Coleman, McCoy Tyner, Sting, Lew Soloff, David Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Akiko Yano, Leroy Jenkins, Gerry Mulligan, Isaac Hayes, Mike Richmond, Howard Johnson, Carla Bley, Grachan Moncur, Ashford and Simpson, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Pat Metheny, Frank Sinatra, Dave Grusin, John Scofield, Spyro Gyra, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, LL Cool J, Gil Evans and the Gil Evans Orchestra, Joe Lovano, Jaco Pastorius, Paquito D'Rivera, Jim Hall, Rachel Z, Jimmy Heath, Johnny Griffin, Toots Thielemans, John Faddis, Gary Bartz, Billy Joel, the Fugees, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the Turtle Island String Quartet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, the Aspen Wind Quintet, and the Paul Winter Consort.

Clark received a B.A. from the University of Rochester, where he studied horn with Verne Reynolds. He received an M.M. degree (with honors) from the New England Conservatory of Music. He studied composition and improvisation with Jaki Byard, Ran Blake, and George Russell; and horn with James Stagliano, Thomas Newell, and Paul Ingraham. He has taught at the State University of New York at Purchase since 2001.

He is the winner of Downbeat Critics' Polls for 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1982. He has performed as a studio musician for many films, including Mission to Mars, Fargo, and Pocahontas.