Bruce Clarke OAM (1 December 1925 – 24 July 2008) was an Australian

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

guitarist, composer, and educator.

Biography

One of Clarke's early music teachers was the New Zealander Tui Hamilton, at the Melbourne Hawaiian Club, from the early 1940s. Clarke played guitar in professional jazz ensembles, and from the late 1940s to mid 1950s he worked as a

session musician Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...

for radio orchestras. Clarke accompanied musicians on their tours of Australia played in dance halls and ballrooms. After the advent of television in Australia in 1956, Clarke started a recording studio and production company named The Jingle Workshop. He performed in thousands of recordings for films, television programs, and commercials, playing guitar and/or synthesizer. He was president of the International Society of Contemporary Music. He accepted a commission to realize the first major Australian electronic work for the 1968

Adelaide Festival of Arts The Adelaide Festival of Arts, also known as the Adelaide Festival, an arts festival, takes place in the South Australian capital of Adelaide in March each year. Started in 1960, it is a major celebration of the arts and a significant cultural ...

and conducted performances in Melbourne of works by 20th-century composers

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Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work ...

, and

Anton Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stea ...

. He went on tour in Europe as a member of

Felix Werder Felix Werder AM (24 February 19223 May 2012) was a German-born Australian composer of classical and electronic music, and also a noted critic and educator. The son of a distinguished liturgical composer, he composed all his life. His published ...

's ensemble Australia Felix. He accompanied classical guitarist

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with the

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an Australian orchestra based in Melbourne. The MSO is resident at Hamer Hall. The MSO has its own choir, the MSO Chorus, following integration with the Melbourne Chorale in 2008. The MSO relies on f ...

in ''Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra'' written by Andre Previn. In 1977 he founded the Jazz Studies program at

Victorian College of the Arts The Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) is the arts school at the University of Melbourne in Australia. It is part of the university's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. It is located near the Melbourne city centre on the Southbank campus of the ...

. He ran his own music tuition school, Guitar Workshop, and wrote for the magazine ''Jamm'' During the late seventies he taught guitar using the

Berklee Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level course ...

method books and his pre-recorded cassette tapes. His students include

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, Robert Goodge (of

I'm Talking I'm Talking are an Australian funk-pop music, pop rock band, which featured vocalists Kate Ceberano and Zan Abeyratne. They formed in 1983 in Melbourne and provided top ten hit singles "Trust Me (I'm Talking song), Trust Me", "Do You Wanna Be?" ...

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, Pierre Jaquinot, Laszlo Sirsom, Mark Cally,

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, Doug de Vries, Dominic Kiernan, Barry Morton, and Andrew Pendlebury (of

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). He founded Cumquat Records to issue recordings of Australian jazz. He worked with

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...

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Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...

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Stan Getz Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of ...

, and John Collins.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Bruce 1925 births 2008 deaths 20th-century Australian musicians 20th-century guitarists Australian jazz guitarists Musicians from Melbourne

Biography

Further reading

References