Celebrating Clare Church during Women’s History Month

Local Artist Clare Church can be seen at many clubs throughout the Denver Metro Area. 

When asked about how she got started in jazz and who some of her Shero’s of jazz were she said: “I got started playing jazz in middle school, on the baritone saxophone. I played all through high school, then went to Northern Illinois University, which had a nationally-renowned jazz program, and to my surprise and delight, made it into the top jazz band, the first female horn player ever in that ensemble. I learned how to be a professional in that band, since we toured three times a year and made a CD every year. I learned that I had something to say as an improviser, too, when one of our guest artists, saxophonist Arnie Lawrence, brought me up during his cadenza at the end of a piece to join him in a duo. It went so well that I was a featured soloist from then on in that band. After college I got a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to go to New York and study with Dave Liebman. During that trip I played at a little womens’ jazz festival and got noticed by Rufus Reid, who got me a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival for jazz. From then on I was hooked. I ended up playing in Joe Henderson’s Big Band in San Francisco for seven years, plus the big bands of Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as Mel Torme and Nancy Wilson.

As far as “sheros”, like many of my generation, there just weren’t many. As far as horns, piano. bass, I listened to the masters, who were men. Women in these roles, unfortunately were not well-known. I guess I would say that it was the vocalists that I really listened to, especially Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald. Nowadays, I really admire Terri Lynn Carrington, Esperanza Spaulding,  Dianne Reeves, and Tia Fuller, (who I knew when she was in her late teens and early twenties through my teaching at the Mile High Jazz Camp.) Locally, of course, I have to give kudos to my two other female jazz drummer buddies, Jill Fredricksen and Amy Shelley.”

Some of her favorite Jazz songs include:  John Coltrane’s “Mr. Sims”,  Bill Evans’ “Gloria’s Step” from :Live at The Village Vanguard, and Don Grolnick’s “Hearts and Numbers” from the album by the same name.