Clarence (C) Sharpe and Billy Harper, two unjustly overlooked saxophonists, came to the 
Knitting Factory on Tuesday night as part of its jazz festival and performed wonderfully. 

Mr. Sharpe, an occasional street musician, has taken from the tender, lyrical side of 
Charlie Parker's legacy to infuse his concert with kindness. He's a be-bop archivist, a 
musician who has taken the complex rhythmic and harmonic rules of the idiom, and using 
his tissue-thin, broad tone, made them his own. 

Leading a band that included Burt Eckoff on piano, Harold Dotson on bass and Leroy Williams 
on drums, he worked his way through standards - ''This Time the Dream's on You,'' 
''Leave My Heart Alone'' - and a few originals. 

On ''Embraceable You,'' he dipped in and out of Mr. Parker's original solo and found his 
most passionate solo of the night. Playing quietly - he has the sort of demeanor that silences 
a whole room - he would spin off a curt flurry of notes, march into double time, then, leaving 
a phrase unfinished, dart off on a new rhythmic tangent. 

Mr. Sharpe plays with an odd, elusive intonation, placing him as a sort of missing link 
between Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman. Mr. Harper, the tenor saxophonist, is a blunt, 
straightforward soloist. Mr. Harper's writing and arranging, concise and varied, sound like 
the music the Blue Note record label produced in the early- to mid-1960's, in which oceanic 
modal harmonies mixed with more traditional song forms. 

Mr. Harper fronts a tough band, including Francesca Tanksley on piano, Eddie Henderson on 
trumpet, Clarence Seay on bass and Newman Baker on drums. Together, they kicked up some noise - 
at times the bandstand was as animated as a tree caught in a wind storm. Throughout, 
Mr. Harper hurled dry, silvery lines that blurred individual notes, putting them to service 
as part of a greater whole. 

LEAD: Clarence (C) Sharpe, an alto saxophonist who exemplified the jazz underground, died on 
Sunday at Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City. 
He was 53 years old. 

Mr. Sharpe underwent surgery for throat cancer last spring, but he recovered enough to perform 
at the club Zanzibar in Manhattan. In June, he performed in France on a concert bill with 
Jackie McLean and Phil Woods. 

Mr. Sharpe's distinctive approach was described by Peter Watrous, a critic for The New York 
Times, as ''the missing link between Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman.'' His phrasing and 
sense of harmony were rooted in be-bop, while his unconventional, highly personal intonation 
presaged free jazz. 

The Start of His Career 

Mr. Sharpe was born in St. Louis and grew up in Philadelphia, where he worked with leading 
musicians, including the pianist McCoy Tyner, the bassist Jimmy Garrison and the drummer 
Philly Joe Jones. During the flowering of hard-bop in New York City at the turn of the 1960's, 
he appeared as a sideman on an early album by the trumpeter Lee Morgan, and in 1969, he 
performed as part of a big band on Archie Shepp's album ''For Losers.'' 

But Mr. Sharpe did not establish his own career, and for many years he performed as a street 
musician in New York, at jam sessions and as a sideman. From the late 60's to the present, 
he taught improvisation at the University of the Streets on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. 

He is survived by his mother, Louise Sharpe; a sister, Desiree Crafton; two brothers, 
Perry Lawrence Sharpe and Lonnie Boyd Sharpe, all of Philadelphia; his wife, the former 
China Lynn Perrault, and two sons.