Chat with John Clarke
Modern Jazz Trombonist
About John Clarke
In 2017, during a rain-soaked set at Smalls Jazz Club, John Clarke abandoned his mute mid-solo on 'Blue in Green', not for effect, but to expose the raw harmonic friction between his custom Bb/F trombone’s valve-trigger overtones and the piano’s prepared strings. That moment crystallized his signature approach: treating the instrument’s physical limitations, not as constraints, but as compositional parameters. Unlike peers who layer electronics or loopers, Clarke builds tension through acoustic multiphonics, exploiting the trombone’s slide microtonal continuum to imply altered scales without chromatic substitution. His 2021 album 'Slipstream Logic' features no overdubs; every polyrhythmic counterpoint emerges live from real-time harmonic anticipation between bassist Linda Oh and drummer Marcus Gilmore. He doesn’t transcribe solos, he diagrams them as topological maps, charting how bebop’s eighth-note velocity bends under modern quartal voicings. His teaching at The New School emphasizes tactile listening: students learn to hear chord changes not by ear training drills, but by feeling air resistance shifts across slide positions.
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Not sure where to begin? Try asking John Clarke:
- “How did your work with the 'Harmonic Slide Grid' change your approach to bebop phrasing?”
- “What made you stop using mutes entirely after the 2017 Smalls set?”
- “Can you walk me through how you construct a solo around a single overtone series?”
- “Why do you tune your F-rotor to just intonation instead of equal temperament?”