Mike Clark Offers a Varied but Ceaselessly Swinging Program on “Kuon Ganjo (Time Without Beginning),” Set for August 7 Release on Wide Hive Records

ALBUM IS A STRAIGHTAHEAD BUT SURPRISE-LADEN COLLECTION 
LED BY THE ACCLAIMED DRUMMER,
FEATURING EDDIE HENDERSON, CRAIG HANDY,
PATRICE RUSHEN, ESSIET OKON ESSIET

APPEARING AT SAN JOSE JAZZ FESTIVAL, AUGUST 8;
JAZZCULTURAL, NYC, OCTOBER 1

RICHMOND, Calif., Aug. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Drummer Mike Clark plies his undisputed mastery of swing in its many guises with both relish and stark imagination on Kuon Ganjo (Time Without Beginning), his August 7 release on Wide Hive Records. Featuring an elite ensemble with trumpeter and NEA Jazz Master Eddie Henderson, tenor saxophonist Craig Handy, pianist Patrice Rushen, and bassist Essiet Okon Essiet, the West Coast jazz icon’s third Wide Hive album, largely a straightahead jazz set, is predictably a scorcher…though little else about it is predictable.

But then, one doesn’t bring in such a killer lineup of musicians—nor do they, for that matter, get on board with the likes of Clark—if predictability, or playing it safe, is the goal. “Playing with this band is a drummer’s dream,” Clark says. “They make it so easy all I have to do is be myself with all my idiosyncrasies. I want to do it my way, and they make that possible.”

Doing it Clark’s way means covering all the bases. His youthful days sitting in with Texas hard boppers come to the fore on the down-and-dirty “Austin City Shuffle”; he channels that same energy into fiery takes on “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” (Clark’s favorite standard) and Jan Hammer’s jittery “Lungs.” Cooler and more thoughtful (though no less vital), however, are Herbie Hancock’s whimsical “Toys,” Wayne Shorter’s playful “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Eddy and Hyde,” a previously unrecorded tune co-written by producer Gregory Howe and trumpeter Erik Jekabson.

As ever, though, Clark keeps listeners guessing. The album opens with “East Broadway Rundown,” Sonny Rollins’s lean, tough-talking piece at the intersection of gritty blues and “out”-pointing dissonance. Equally lean, but letting quirky gregariousness take the place of tough talk, is “Monk’s Dream” (here a feature for Essiet, who’s full of lively rhythms and cheeky humor). Then there’s the title track, which is perhaps best described as all quirk. Named for the Buddhist concept of “Time without beginning,” “Kuon Ganjo” is a freeform excursion that even subverts that notion, cohering unexpectedly into hard-driving swing halfway through before deconstructing again.

Of course, none of this would be possible for Clark to do alone. His ace collaborators more than justify their presence on the album. Essiet’s featured solo on “Monk’s Dream” is the capstone to a smart, muscular album-length performance. The horns are superb, with Henderson bringing a lyrical palette to the rough textures of “Austin City Shuffle” and Handy putting a coarser edge on “Toys”; Rushen adds harmonic flair to everything she touches and accentuates “East Broadway Rundown” with a solo that has the air of plainspoken truth. There’s much of that truth to be found across Kuon Ganjo.

Mike Clark was born October 3, 1946 in Sacramento, California, to what one might call a hard-working, hard-driving family. His father, George, was a railroad switchman who was also a union representative—and a swinging jazz drummer in his own right. A chip off that block, the younger Clark was firing off jazz and blues licks behind the kit by the time he was four years old. It inspired his dad to bring his son with him on job assignments, where the boy was soon sitting in with bands in Texas, New Orleans, and all over the country.

After high school, Clark relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he found he could get work every night. He and roommate, best friend, and bassist Paul Jackson became the de facto house rhythm section at San Francisco’s Both/And Club, and Clark made his first recordings with Bay Area pianist Vince Guaraldi. But they also worked widely within the burgeoning R&B (and later funk) scene in Oakland and the East Bay, where they helped develop a distinctive regional sound. The stylistic combination ultimately brought both Jackson and Clark into Herbie Hancock’s funk-fusion ensemble Headhunters, making them into globetrotting, trendsetting musicians who incorporated the flavors of every rhythmic genre imaginable.

But while no one can question his credentials in any of those styles, Clark was always a jazz musician at heart. He spent the nearly 50 years after the Headhunters’ heyday freelancing with a panoply of jazz and adjacent musicians, including Tony Bennett, Eddie Henderson, Dave Liebman, Babatunde Olatunji, Chet Baker, Julius Hemphill, Andrew Hill, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Christian McBride, among countless others. He recorded his own debut as a leader, Give the Drummer Some, in 1989, going on to record nearly two dozen more times as a leader or co-leader and developing both critical acclaim and a formidable reputation as a drummer’s drummer.

A famously vivid raconteur whose candid Facebook posts about the jazz life will soon take on a greatly expanded form in his autobiography God Make Me Funky (written with prolific jazz biographer Bill Milkowski and due for 2027 publication), Clark is equally revelatory in his music. Kuon Ganjo continues a brilliant late-career run by an indefatigable artist on the cusp of 80.

Mike Clark will be appearing at the San Jose Jazz Festival Sat. 8/8 at 1pm, with Eddie Henderson, trumpet; Craig Handy, tenor saxophone; Dave Kikoski, piano; and Essiet Okon Essiet, bass. Other dates include: 8/18 Ornithology, Brooklyn (w/ Jesse Collins Quartet); 8/28 Caffe Vivace, Cleveland (organ trio); 8/29 Jazz Kitchen, Indianapolis (organ trio); 8/30 Space, Evanston, IL (organ trio); 9/17 Mezzrow (w/ Neal Kirkwood Trio); 9/25 Dazzle, Denver; 10/1 Jazzcultural, NYC (Mike Clark birthday bash, with Craig Handy, Mike LeDonne, Joris Teepe); 10/2 Snugg Harbor, New Orleans (w/ Wil Blades, Donald Harrison). 

www.drummermikeclark.com

Terri Hinte
510-234-8781
hudba@sbcglobal.net

A video accompanying this announcement is available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a16f5d1b-e76d-4c50-a481-1200318f17c5