Clarence Acox, Jr.

Clarence Acox, Jr. is an American band director and jazz drummer. He is a native of New Orleans, and has been heard in a variety of settings in the Northwest.

He is director of jazz bands at Garfield High School, where he has taught since arriving from Southern University in New Orleans in 1971, initially hired to rejuvenate the school's marching bands. Under his tutelage since 1979, the Garfield Jazz Ensemble has won every major competition on the West Coast, including competitions in Nevada, California, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington.

The jazz ensemble has made ten European tours, performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, Jazz á Vienne in France, and the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy, as well as many concerts in Paris, and Innsbruck, Austria. The band has also been a finalist in the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival held at Lincoln Center in New York City for eight successive years as of 2008. The jazz ensemble won the Second Place Trophy at the Ellington Festival in 2002 and 2008 and the First Place Trophy in 2003 and 2004, as well as 2009 and 2010, making it the only group in the history of the competition to accomplish this feat four times. Rival Roosevelt High School has won three competitions.

Acox was named Educator of the Year by Down Beat magazine in 2001. In 2003 he was presented the Impact Award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization that sponsors the Grammy Awards. In 2004 the Seattle Music Educators Association recognized him as its Outstanding Music Educator. In 2007 he was presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Seattle mayor Greg Nickels. In 2008 Seattle Metropolitan magazine named him one of the 50 most influential musicians in the history of Seattle music. In 2010, he and Roosevelt High School's Scott Brown shared the Impact Award at Seattle's second annual City of Music Awards.

Acox is a regular on the club scene in the Seattle area. He has performed with the Floyd Standifer Quartet (now Legacy Quartet) at the New Orleans Creole Restaurant since 1987. His powerful and swinging drum style also drives the local Roadside Attraction big band and the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1995 with University of Washington saxophone instructor Michael Brockman.