Kenny Clarke

Kenneth Spearman Clarke nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaquat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and bandleader.

He was a major innovator of the bebop style of drumming. As the house drummer at Minton's Playhouse in the early 1940s, he participated in the after hours jams that led to the birth of bebop, which in turn led to modern jazz. While in New York City, he played with the major innovators of the emerging bop style, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Curly Russell and others, as well as musicians of the prior generation, including Sidney Bechet. He spent his later life in Paris.