TCB

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ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGET

Jay Clark, whose smooth sounds brought the Carousel Lounge's circus murals to colorful life for three decades, passed away from kidney failure last week at age 86. Clark, born John W. Clark in the North Texas town of Ennis on Nov. 19, 1919, was blinded in two separate childhood accidents and moved to Austin to attend the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. After graduating, he toured the state with the Swingsters and eventually took over that band before starting the Velvetones, who secured a seven-night residency at the Carousel shortly after the East 51st Street lounge opened in 1963. Though Clark became best known for his frothy Wurlitzer interpretations of popular big-band and swing tunes, "The keyboard wasn't his main instrument at all," son John W. Clark Jr. said Monday. "His main interests were the saxophone and clarinet." A stroke forced him to retire from the Carousel in 1998, the same year Clark was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame. He married twice and is survived by a brother, three children, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.