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Sonny Clark
Conrad Yeatis "Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Contents Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town southeast of Pittsburgh. At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh. When visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and after a couple months, was working with clarinetist Buddy DeFranco in 1953. Clark toured the U.S. and Europe with DeFranco until January 1956, when he joined The Lighthouse All-Stars, led by bassist Howard Rumsey.
Wishing to return to the east coast, Clark served as accompanist for singer Dinah Washington in February 1957 in order to relocate to New York City. In New York, Clark was often requested as a sideman by many musicians, partly because of his rhythmic comping. He frequently recorded for Blue Note Records, playing as a sideman with many hard bop players, including Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Paul Chambers, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Art Farmer, Curtis Fuller, Grant Green, Philly Joe Jones, Clifford Jordan, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Art Taylor, and Wilbur Ware. He also recorded sessions with Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Billie Holiday, Stanley Turrentine, and Lee Morgan. As a band leader, Clark recorded albums Dial "S" for Sonny (1957), Sonny's Crib (1957), Sonny Clark Trio (1957), with Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, and Cool Struttin' (1958). Sonny Clark Trio, with George Duvivier and Max Roach was released in 1960. Clark died of a heart attack in New York City, although commentators attribute the early death to Clark's drug and alcohol abuse.
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Sonny's Crib
by C. Michael Bailey
From the outset, pianist Sonny Clark's sophomore effort as a leader is crisp, white-hot hard bop. Leading a standard bop trumpet-tenor saxophone quintet (Donald Byrd, John Coltrane), supplemented with trombone (Curtis Fuller), Clark and his most reliable rhythm section of bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Art Taylor carve five dictionary examples (with alternate takes on the CD) of the music evolving from bebop, principally on the East Coast (if we consider that cool jazz took root on the West Coast ...
Continue ReadingDial "S" for Sonny
by C. Michael Bailey
Pianist Sonny Clark was culturally marginalized in much the same way as his contemporary Elmo Hope—both heroin-addicted jazz musicians in the 1950s: at the time, and romantically, a cliche. Both pianists have been sorely lumped into the “Bud Powell school of bop piano" which superficially may seem accurate until one considers the evolutionary continuum of jazz piano that places both Clark and Hope conceptually and stylistically beyond Powell. Clark was born in Georgia and raised outside of jny: ...
Continue ReadingTina Brooks Quintet: The Complete Recordings
by Chris May
Mosaic Records' spring 2020 release The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70, the second of the label's box sets devoted to the copiously recorded (and rightly so) Hank Mobley, prompts thoughts of another of Blue Note's singular hard-bop tenor saxophone stylists. Unlike Mobley, Tina Brooks was woefully under-recorded, making just four albums under his own name. But like Mobley, Brooks had an instantly recognisable sound, was a spellbinding soloist and was also a gifted composer. In addition to his ...
Continue ReadingSonny Clark Trio: The 1960 Sessions with George Duvivier and Max Roach
by Jakob Baekgaard
Jazz history tends to favor the great musical innovators whose stylistic leaps have formed the ever-changing vocabulary of jazz: the improvisational wonder of Louis Armstrong, the free flight of Charlie Parker, the chameleon-like transformations of Miles Davis, and the singular piano world of Thelonious Monk. For long a time, Monk, along with Bud Powell, has been seen as one of the architects of bop piano, and while this is certainly true, it can be interesting to hear those bop pianists ...
Continue ReadingSonny Clark: Cool Struttin’ – 1958
by Marc Davis
Blue Note Records was many things in the 1950s and '60s, but it was never the home of cool jazz. Yes, it was ground zero for hard bop in the '50s. And yes, it was the capital of soul-jazz in the '60s. But to release an album in 1958 (one year after Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool) with the word “cool" in the title was a very un-Blue Note-ish thing. And yet Cool Struttin'--led by pianist Sonny ...
Continue ReadingSonny Clark: Dial "S" For Sonny
by Greg Simmons
Original copies of Blue Note 1570--Dial “S" For Sonny--are among the rarer Blue Note records, often changing hands for thousands of dollars for even a mediocre copy. That's an awful lot of scratch for a fifty-six year old piece of pressed vinyl and a cardboard sleeve. Fortunately, there are better ways to hear pianist Sonny Clark's debut recording for the fabled label. The Music Matters series of two-disk, 45 rpm vinyl records is winding down after close to one hundred ...
Continue ReadingHeart of Darkness: Sonny Clark Remembers April
by Alexander M. Stern
Pianist Sonny Clark was a consummate hard-bopper who made only a handful of recordings as a leader, but appears on literally dozens of albums as a sideman. His impressive list of credits includes sessions with Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Billie Holiday, Grant Green, Stanley Turrentine, Lee Morgan, and Jackie McLean. His style was largely informed by that of Bud Powell, yet showed a great deal of originality. Clark was a close friend of fellow pianist Bill Evans, who dedicated a ...
Continue ReadingMosaic: Complete Sonny Clark Blue Note Sessions
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
If jazz musicians were among the most beautiful creative “flowers" ever produced by America, then heroin can be likened to a fungus that destroyed a large number of them. Today, it's hard to figure how so much heroin was able to enter the United States after World War II and why its import wasn't stopped more aggressively by the FBI. Heroin has a long history that dates back centuries. In the U.S., the drug was legal and marketed by the ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Sonny Clark
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Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Sonny Clark's birthday today!
Conrad Yeatis “Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Contents Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town southeast of jny: Pittsburgh. At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh. When visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to jny: San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Sonny Clark
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Sonny Clark's birthday today!
Conrad Yeatis “Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Contents Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town southeast of Pittsburgh. At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh. When visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and after a ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Sonny Clark
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Sonny Clark's birthday today!
Conrad Yeatis “Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Contents Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town southeast of Pittsburgh. At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh. When visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and after a ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Sonny Clark
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Sonny Clark's birthday today!
Conrad Yeatis “Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Contents Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town southeast of Pittsburgh. At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh. When visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and after a ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Sonny Clark
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Sonny Clark's birthday today!
Conrad Yeatis “Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Contents Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town southeast of Pittsburgh. At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh. When visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and after a ...
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Sonny Clark: My Conception
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Pianist Sonny Clark recorded five albums with tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley. Three were Mobley leadership sessions and two were led by Clark. They united on Hank Mobley (in June 1957), Dial S for Sonny (in July 1957), Hank Mobley Quintet Featuring Sonny Clark (in August 1957), Mobley's Poppin' (in October 1957) and Clark's My Conception (in March 1959). It's hard to pick a favorite among these albums, just as it's hard to isolate a Clark recording as superior to all ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Sonny Clark
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Sonny Clark's birthday today!
Conrad Yeatis “Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Contents Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town southeast of Pittsburgh. At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh. When visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and after a ...
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Electrifying Track: Junka
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Sonny Clark was an elegant jazz pianist who recorded in the hard bop era and was influenced primarily by Bud Powell, though there's a touch of Horace Silver in his punctuation. Clark was a sideman on many important albums, including recordings by Buddy DeFranco, Serge Chaloff, Frank Rosolino, Sonny Criss, Howard Rumsey, Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley, Le Morgan, Tina Brooks, Jackie McLean, Grant Green, Dexter Gordon and many others. Surprisingly, he recorded only 10 studio leadership albums. Among his finest ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Sonny Clark
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Sonny Clark's birthday today!
Conrad Yeatis “Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom. Contents Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town southeast of Pittsburgh. At age 12, he moved to Pittsburgh. When visiting an aunt in California at age 20, Clark decided to stay and began working with saxophonist Wardell Gray. Clark went to San Francisco with Oscar Pettiford and after a ...
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