Joel Roberts
January 2002

Combing the Catalog
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By Joel Roberts

Born in the same year, 1931, pianist Sonny Clark and guitarist Grant Green were frequent collaborators whose careers followed similar trajectories. Both recorded fine albums as leaders for Blue Note in the late '50s and '60s and achieved success just below the top tier of the jazz world before drug and health problems ultimately cut their careers short - Clark dying in 1961 and Green in 1979. Largely forgotten until recent years, the pair's reputations have enjoyed a resurgence thanks to a slew of fine reissues, like the current Sonny Clark Trio and Green's Am I Blue, both available in new Rudy Van Gelder Editions.

The Clark session, from 1957, matches the pianist with the era's top rhythm section - Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones from Miles Davis' group - on a selection of bebop classics by Dizzy Gillespie and Tadd Dameron and standards from the Rodgers & Hart and Oscar Hammerstein songbooks. The trio's cohesion is uncanny; Clark's loping Bud Powell-esque bebop piano is a perfect fit with the peerless modernism of Chambers and Jones, who just a few months later would rejoin the leader on his best-known effort, Cool Struttin'. Clark also turns in a haunting, melancholy solo take on "I'll Remember April." All in all, a fine trio outing by one of the consummate pianists of his generation.

Am I Blue recorded in 1963, matches Green's distinctive single-note guitar style with his regular rhythm section of organist John Patton and drummer Ben Dixon, plus a young Joe Henderson on tenor sax and soon-to-be Mingus sideman Johnny Coles on trumpet. As the title suggests, this is essentially a blues album, with a heavy dose of rhythm and blues. There's even a nod to Ray Charles' then popular country-western soul on "Take These Chains From My Heart." It's great fun to hear the forward-thinking Henderson and Coles, both of whom would soon record their own debuts on Blue Note, let loose on these moody, extremely accessible numbers.

There's little surprising or earth-shattering here - Green was never much of an innovator - just excellent mainstream bluesy jazz played by a quintet of stellar musicians. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Sonny Clark Trio - Sonny Clark Trio

Personnel: Sonny Clark, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.
Track listing:: Be-Bop, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Two Bass Hit, Tadd's Delight, Softly As In a Morning Sunrise, I'll Remember April, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Two Bass Hit, Tadd's Delight.

Grant Green - Am I Blue

Personnel: Grant Green, guitar; Johnny Coles, trumpet; Joe Henderson, tenor sax; John Patton, organ; Ben Dixon, drums.
Track listing: Am I Blue, Take These Chains From My Heart, I Wanna Be Loved, Sweet Slumber, For All We Know.