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Clark Sommers

Clark Sommers is a Grammy Award winning bassist steeped in the jazz tradition. Sommers, born September 7th, 1977, raised in Lake Forest, Illinois, is an artist dedicated to cultivating his own unique sound by expanding on the work of past masters while keeping an ear towards the future. Over the last 15 years Clark has performed all over the world and is featured on more than 40 albums with renowned artists such as Kurt Elling, Cedar Walton, Ernie Watts, The Mighty Blue Kings, Marilyn McCoo, Marvin Hamlisch, Kevin Mahogany, Peter Bernstein, Michael Weiss, Ira Sullivan, Frank Wess and Charles McPherson among others. ”Clark Sommers rings true and honest in tone. The golden color pours a solid foundation to the timber of the group.” – All About Jazz.

Clark began his musical career in 1990 when his parents bought him a drum set for Christmas. He made the switch to electric bass when his seventh grade buddies formed a rock band that didn’t have a bassist. Only after hearing the slinky bass lines on Led Zeppelin and James Brown records did he realize the power of bass in music. Early in high school Clark had the opportunity to study with James Cammack; long time bassist of the iconic pianist Ahmad Jamal. “I learned so much from Jim. He had a definitive personality on the bass…it was like he was speaking through the instrument, really communicating. He had an infectious groove that was undeniable. He taught me the role of the bass and how paramount it was in every musical context.” Six months after intense study with Cammack, Clark was playing with local musicians more than twice his age. Shortly after that he made the transition to the upright-bass and began spending his lunch hour practicing on a school bass in the orchestra room. By his junior year, Clark was playing jazz at clubs, private parties and restaurants throughout the suburbs of Chicago. Occasionally, Cammack would let Clark sit in on his gigs with some of Chicago’s finest musicians. During his senior year in high school, Clark was chosen as the bassist for the Midwest Grammy band and was nominated for the All-American Grammy band.

After high school Sommers enrolled at DePaul University in Chicago where he quickly began playing around town with many older, professional musicians. “Being an aspiring bassist at that particular time in Chicago offered so many opportunities for growth. One night I’d play jazz. The next night I’d play with a singer-songwriter. The next night, American roots music or a Latin Folk band…it was all music to me. There was so much work and I was hungry to play as much as I possibly could.” In addition to studying bass with Larry Gray at DePaul, Clark was mentored by another of Chicago’s great bassists, Kelly Sill. “Kelly had a profound effect on how I listened to music and his truly original style of playing really influenced the way I play. He encouraged a deeper investigation in to my own way of accompanying a band by being yself. He also taught me a lot about piano harmony.” At that time Clark was fortunate to play regularly with the likes of saxophone giant Lin Hallidy and Chicago piano greats: Jodie Christian and Ron Perrillo. “It was the first time I had the chance to play with authentic jazz musicians on that level-it was the real thing. Playing with Ron illustrated a world of possibilities for me in music. I would say that playing with him was the closest ‘spiritual’ experience I had playing music. He also profoundly influenced my writing” Due to a busy gig schedule Sommers withdrew from DePaul in June of 1997 to focus his energy exclusively on playing the bass. In late summer of 1997 Clark joined an acclaimed local rhythm and blues band called the Mighty Blue Kings and toured the U.S. and Europe for the ensuing two years.

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10
Album Review

PlainsPeak: Someone to Someone

Read "Someone to Someone" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Jon Irabagon's PlainsPeak delivers a soulful homecoming via a love letter to Chicago with its debut, Someone to Someone. Ditching the tech-heavy sprawl of his earlier work like Server Farm (Irabbagast, 2025), the leader returns to Chicago's gritty roots with a lean acoustic quartet that is all heart and sly wit. Irabagon, a Chicago-born saxophonist and winner of the Thelonious Monk Competition, leads with his alto's warm expressive tone. He is joined by trumpeter Russ Johnson, a longtime ...

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Jon Irabagon / PlainsPeak: Someone to Someone

Read "Someone to Someone" reviewed by Jack Kenny


Jon Irabagon is a musician whose complexity is both exhilarating and daunting. His restless energy, deep self-reflection, remarkable achievements and sharp intellect combine to create a figure who constantly provokes questions--about music, originality and the very nature of artistic expression. In 2011, Irabagon undertook a bold experiment: With Mostly Other People Do The Killing, he recorded Blue (Hot Cup, 2014), a note-for-note recreation of Miles Davis's iconic Kind of Blue (Columbia Records, 1959). This endeavor recalls Gus Van ...

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Jimmy Farace: Hours Fly, Flowers Die

Read "Hours Fly, Flowers Die" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


There have been many recordings of saxophones backed by string sections since Charlie Parker experimented with the idea many years ago. The majority of those have featured tenor or alto sax players. However, on his debut album, Jimmy Farace demonstrates how the baritone sax can excel beautifully in this format. The full instrumental lineup on this set has Farace in front of a quintet, which also includes guitar and piano, meeting up with the KAIA String Quartet. The ...

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Chris Varga: Breathe

Read "Breathe" reviewed by Jack Bowers


It is always refreshing to hear a talented vibraphonist seducing the mallets while leading a band, as is true on Breathe, Chris Varga's second recording, and the first in the U.S., following 2023's Vichara on South Korea's Mung Music label. Varga, who has been living and performing in Seoul for more than two decades, returned “home" to Chicago in 2024 and recruited four able-bodied sidemen to record eight of his largely hermetic yet lavishly bedecked compositions and arrangements.

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Album Review

Chris Varga: Breathe

Read "Breathe" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Setting up shop as a jazz artist in Seoul, South Korea, is probably not the recommended way of raising the profile in the United States. But vibraphonist Chris Varga, who worked the jazz scene in Chicago during the '90s, made that trans-Pacific move and set himself up as a busy and prolific player in Korea's vibrant jazz scene. Coming back stateside for an extended stay in 2024, Varga took advantage of the opportunity to put together a quintet ...

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Album Review

Julia Danielle: Julia Danielle

Read "Julia Danielle" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


Julia Danielle is a young Chicago-based singer whose debut album shows considerable promise. Aside from a limpid contralto voice, good time, and a dead-on resemblance in profile to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (it cannot hurt), she is the epitome of effortlessness and good taste in her approach to the Great American Songbook. One ultimately suspects she will find her métier singing in the intimate setting of a small room backed precisely by the sympathetic support of the small band she ...

2
Album Review

Julia Danielle: Julia Danielle

Read "Julia Danielle" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright


Julia Danielle has been working hard on her craft. She grew up in the Chicago area, singing in the Campanella Children's Choir, winning the International Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition in 2022 and earning an undergraduate degree from DePaul University in 2023. She is on track to graduate with a master's in jazz studies from Juilliard in 2026. On Julia Danielle, her self-titled debut, she reveals her skills as a budding singer and arranger in a set of familiar standards, ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Breathe

Calligram Records
2025

buy

Hours Fly, Flowers Die

Shifting Paradigm Records
2025

buy

Someone to Someone

Irabbagast Records
2025

buy

Old Souls

Calligram Records
2024

buy

Colossal Abundance

Calligram Records
2024

buy

Julia Danielle

Shifting Paradigm Records
2024

buy

Night and Day

From: Julia Danielle
By Clark Sommers

Some of the Things You Are

From: Four Windows
By Clark Sommers

Momentum

From: Urbanessence
By Clark Sommers

Little Gold Fish

From: Life in Time
By Clark Sommers

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