Mike Clark

Mike Clark is well known for his ground-breaking work with Herbie Hancock's 1970s funk-jazz outfit the Headhunters. He even headed up the group after Hancock left to pursue other projects. Clark's work goes far beyond the funk and R&B traditions, however, and his own albums -- like 1989's Give the Drummer Some, 1992's The Funk Stops Here, and 2000's Actual Proof -- reveal him as an astute contemporary jazz drummer and composer. Bebop and organ jazz influences marked 2010's Carnival of Soul, while 2023's avant-garde-leaning Kosen Rufu found him reuniting with two fellow Hancock band alumni, trumpeter Eddie Henderson and percussionist Bill Summers. In 2025, Clark brought back Henderson to play alongside pianist/keyboardist Patrice Rushen, bassist Henry Franklin, and saxophonist Craig Handy for the HiveMind release Itai Doshin; its title references a Buddhist concept meaning, "many in body, one in mind." In 2026, his quintet released Kuan Ganjo ("beginningless time"). Born October 3, 1946, in Sacramento, California, Clark began his professional career at age six in New Orleans, dipping into blues, soul, and jazz. As a youth, he split time between Texas and Northern and Southern California, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, prominently performing with Vince Guaraldi on the legendary themes for the Peanuts television projects. He was also the drummer on singer Betty Davis' maverick 1974 album They Say I'm Different. Clark and pioneering electric bass guitarist Paul Jackson worked together until both of them were recruited for the Headhunters, recording Thrust, Flood, and Man-Child with Hancock on the Columbia label, and the Headhunters' albums for Arista Records. Clark started his career as a leader with the 1989 Stash album Give the Drummer Some, with help from heavyweights like Jack Wilkins, Jack Walrath, and Ricky Ford. Hopping from label to label over the next 15 years, Clark issued The Funk Stops Here for the Enja label in 1991, was part of Master Drummers, Vol. 3 for Ubiquity, collaborated with Jackson and vibraphonist Marc Wagnon for the 2001 Buckyball CD Conjunction, and issued Summertime for JazzKey in 2003 and his triumphant 2008 release, Blueprints of Jazz, Vol. 1, for Talking House Records. Along the way, Clark revived the Headhunters for recordings and touring, and over the years has collaborated with the likes of Eddie Henderson, Shawn Phillips, Alphonso Johnson, Brian Auger, Christian McBride, Patrice Rushen, Christian Scott, and Robert Hurst, among many others. In 2010, Clark delivered Carnival of Soul, working with organists Jerry Z and Jeff Pittson, as well as guitarist Rez Abbasi. A concert album, Indigo Blue: Live at the Iridium, appeared in 2019, followed a year later by a trio album of Beatles covers with pianist Michael Wolff and bassist Leon Lee Dorsey. Dorsey was also on board for 2021's Freedom Jazz Dance with pianist Manuel Valera. 2023 brought both an album of Herbie Hancock covers as well as the hard-driving Kosen Rufu with trumpeter Eddie Henderson and percussionist Bill Summers, both fellow Hancock alumni. Two years later Clark, with Henderson, pianist/keyboardist Patrice Rushen, bassist Henry Franklin, and saxophonist Craig Handy released Itai Doshin on HiveMind. The album title referenced the Buddhist concept of, "many in body, one in mind." It offered innovative covers of Ray Noble's "Cherokee" and Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy" alongside Bob Marley & the Wailers' "I Shot the Sheriff" and originals by Clark, Henderson, and Franklin. In August of the following year, Clark's quintet -- this time with Essiet Okon Essiet on bass -- issued Kuan Ganjo for Wide Hive. Its title, inspired again by Buddhism, translates from the Japanese as "time without beginning." The program included several originals and covers of Sonny Rollins' "East Broadway Rundown," Hancock's "Toys," and the reimagined standards "Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise" and "Beauty and the Beast." ~ Matt Collar