Jazz Articles about Sonny Clark

About Sonny Clark

Album Review

Sonny's Crib is a very pleasing recording from the sadly overlooked pianist Sonny Clark that works very well as a representative piece of the Blue Note catalogue at the time, framing all the characteristics that made that label so successful. It is essentially a blowing session, and to some extent, a preparation for Coltrane's seminal Blue Train, which was recorded several weeks after Sonny's Crib and featured the same ensemble with Lee Morgan subbing for Donald Byrd and Kenny Drew ...

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Album Review

Sonny Clark: My Conception.

Read "My Conception." reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 1, 2000

In the late 50s and early 60s Sonny Clark functioned as the de facto house pianist for the fabled Blue Note label. Many of his recordings with giants like Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Curtis Fuller among many others are considered classics of the hard bop genre. Unfortunately, this Bud Powell-influenced pianist suffered from drug and alcohol addictions and his career was cut tragically short at the age of 31. As a result, Sonny’s output as a leader, Dial S for ...

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Album Review

Sonny Rollins: The Freelance Years:The Complete Riverside & Contemporary Recordings

Read "The Freelance Years:The Complete Riverside & Contemporary Recordings" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
April 1, 2000

In the collective media catalog that has been developed by Sonny Rollins over the past many decades there is much that is of tangible worth, while only his recordings of the past 15 years or so tend to be dispensable in the long run. Taken together as a group, first-rate Rollins would have to include his Prestige sessions, the RCA-Victor sides, and three dates apiece for both Blue Note and Impulse. Just after the aforementioned Prestige period and prior to ...

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Album Review

Sonny Rollins: The Freelance Years: The Complete Riverside and Contemporary Recordings

Read "The Freelance Years: The Complete Riverside and Contemporary Recordings" reviewed by Robert Spencer

by Robert Spencer
March 1, 2000

If Sonny Rollins is the King of the Tenor Saxophone, it was during the late Fifties, the period covered by this magnificent collection, that he earned his crown. He casts a long shadow on the cover of this five-disc set, and his shadow grows even longer immediately as the music starts, which Monk's treacherous tempo-shifting “Brilliant Corners," as good an example as any of both Monk's right-on off-kilter composing genius and Sonny Rollins' astounding acumen in navigating his tricky scores. ...

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Album Review

Sonny Clark: Standards

Read "Standards" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 1, 1998

Stablemates. In the early 1960s, pianist Sonny Clark (1931-1963) and Guitarist Grant Green (1931-1979) were the top-drawer house musicians in the Blue Note stable. Dexter Gordon considered Sonny Clark his favorite pianist, having him play on the notable Go and A Swinging Affair sessions. Clark also made a series of landmark recordings with clarinetist Buddy DeFranco for Verve. Grant Green was on hand for some of Blue Note's highest moments (Hank Mobley's Workout, Ike Quebec's Blue and Sentimental, and Lee ...