Kim A. Clarke

New York's own Kim Clarke is a multifaceted bassist, composer, website developer and educator. She performs alternately on the Acoustic Bass, Electric Upright and four and five-stringed Electric Bass Guitar as the situation demands. Her electric Bass playing has been described as soulful, funky, rich & tight.

She hold B.A.'s in Communications and Music from City College and Long Island University respectively, and is a 3- time recipient of the coveted N E A Jazz Study Fellowship. Ms Clarke is also a long-time student of the Barry Harris Workshop and continues her formal studies with the wisdom gained therein. She was also a member of Harris' Jazz Cultural Theatre's house band for the famed Art Blakey Breakfast Jam.

Kim 's musical tour experience spans from Guyana , South America through the West and East Coasts of the United States , and touches Canada, Japan and Pakistan. She however has traveled most extensively in Western Europe. In 1981 she embarked upon what was to become a 22 year tour affiliation with trombonist Joseph Bowie and his avant-jazz funk unit Defunkt ; a powerful mixed idiom group which wowed audiencesfrom Iceland to Istanbul. She performed on 17 Defunkt CD's gaining kudos as “nearly the funkiest bass player in NY” and having been a “whiz bassist” “in killer form” and compared with such funky bass Icons as Bootsy Collins. Defunkt's mention in Ivan Bartowski's Jazz Family Tree Map is considered a supreme honor.

Ms Clarke's press exposure also includes 1990 entry in the Who's Who In the Performing Arts,, Bass Player Magazine, Guitar Player Magazine, Germany's Jazzdimensions Online Magazine, a number of European magazines and several books on Women in Jazz. She also was photographed in the late 1980's historic Jazz Musicians on the Roof Project and was one of the Michael Locker's New York Jazz Musicians Project in 2002.

As an Acoustic bassist she traveled most notably with the late Joe Henderson Quartet (1986-7) throughout Europe. Internationally she is noted as “at home in the Ron Carter School of HardBop”, “a dynamic Woman in Jazz who supported the intense rhythm of the Henderson group with unsuspected vitality and melodic solo passages...”

Over the years Kim has also toured with international artists such as: George Gruntz , Annie Whitehead, Christy Doran, Marilyn Mazur, and Ursula Dudziak. Her experiences include tours with the National Black Theatre, Yusef Lateef Quartet, Teri Thornton Trio, Bertha Hope Trio, Robert Palmer , Kit McClure Big Band, Defunkt , Rachel Z Trio, Bigfood, Wallace Roney and Cindy Blackman Quartet, Oliver Lake and Jump Up, James Blood Ulmer Experience, Jack Mc Duff Quartet, Rodney Kendricks Quartet, and local performances with: Harold Ousley, Jimmy Heath , Steve Coleman, Lester Bowie, Andy Bey, Louis Hayes, Gerald Hayes, the late Lionel Hampton, Candido, Patato, Little Jimmy Scott, Dr. Billy Taylor, Olu Dara, Screamin Jay Hawkins, Dakota Staton , Gracian Moncur, the late Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Marylou Williams, Sharon Freeman, Sheila Jordan, Geri Allen, Vanessa Rubin , Cassandra Wilson, Fievre Latina, Adela Dalto, poets Ntozake Shange and Trazana Beverly, dancers Tina Pratt and Roxanne Butterfly, and rapper/actress Queen Latifah.

In 1997 she and a good friend Rob Scheps formed a group MAGNETS! which began its touring life in Oregon . In 2000 the band recorded “MAGNETS! Live at the Earshot Jazz Festival” in Seattle which Kim co-produced with long-time Defunkt bandmate, trumpeter John Mulkerin. The band had the honor of invitation to the PerCuba and Kathmandu Jazz Festivals in 2002.

From 2003-09 Kim co-produced the “LADY GOT CHOPS Women's Month Jazz Festival” with the owners of the Jazz - Brooklyn's Newest Jazz Cafe, Lillithe Myersand her daughter Tiecha Merritt. The cafe closed in 2009. Kim organized the 2010 and 11 festivals in 15 venues through the boroughs, Long Island and Peekskill NY. The festival included a dance troupe in 2010 and had been renamed the LADY GOT CHOPS Women's History Month Music and Arts Festival.It is still a grassroots venture.

She has worked in NY's Latin Music Scene -which includes two times being asked to perfom on a float up NY's 5th Ave. She has recently returned from Europe having performed with Defunkt, tenor saxophonist Charles Davis and with a Jimi Hendrix Tribute tour which featured guitar virtuoso Christy Doran, popular vocalist Erika Stucky , acclaimed drummer Fredy Studer of Switzerland.

Kim has also performed at the Marylou Williams Jazz Festival at Kennedy Center PLays:Eubie, The Wiz, Really Rosie,The Baby Janes in Holiday Kisses,National Black Theatre's Soul Journey Into Truth.

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