Jack Wilkins Trio with Mike Clark and Essiet Essiet
Guitarist Jack Wilkins has been on the International jazz scene since the early 1970's. A native of Brooklyn, Jack began playing guitar at age thirteen. “Windows”, his first album as a leader (Mainstream, 1973), has been critically acclaimed as a dazzling, seminal guitar trio work. In recent years, Jack has played many international festivals with jazz greats Stanley Turrentine, Jimmy Heath, The Mingus Epitaph, and others. Wilkins was awarded an NEA grant in recognition of his work and contribution to the guitar. Wilkins teaches at The New School, Manhattan School of Music, NYU, and LIU. He also conducts seminars on the “Great American Songbook”, and guitar clinics, both in New York and abroad.
Mike Clark gained worldwide recognition as one of America’s foremost jazz and funk drummers while playing with Herbie Hancock in the early seventies. His incisive playing on Hancock’s “Actual Proof” garnered him an international cult following and influenced generations of drummers. Born in Sacramento, CA, Mike traveled around the country with his father, a former drummer himself and a union man for the railroad. by the time he reached his early twenties he was known as one of the founders of the distinctive East Bay Sound coming out of Oakland, California. He lives in New York City. Recently, Mike’s been preparing to tour with the Wolff & Clark Expedition, in support of their latest eponymous CD.
Essiet Okon Essiet first received critical acclaim more than a decade ago as a member of saxophonist Bobby Watson's post-hard bop group Horizon. He has long since established himself as one of New York's premier bassist. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, his parents having moved there from Nigeria, West Africa, the family later moved to Wisconsin where Essiet began his musical studies, on the violin, at age of 10. Four years later he switched to the bass. His first big break came in 1982 when he met Chicago based percussionist Famoudou Don Moye, a founding member of such important collectives as the Art Ensemble of Chicago and The Leaders. Moye asked Essiet to join his quartet and during that same year the bassist met Abdullah Ibrahim, the famed South African pianist. Working with Ibrahim, Essiet toured the globe splitting his time between Europe and the US during the period from 1982 to 1986.
