GXF-3051

Sonny Clark - Blues In The Night

Released - 1979

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, November 16, 1958
Sonny Clark, piano; Jymie Merritt, bass; Wesley Landers, drums.

tk.6 Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You (alternate take)

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, December 7, 1958
Sonny Clark, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Wesley Landers, drums.

tk.3 Can't We Be Friends
tk.4 I Cover The Waterfront
tk.8 Somebody Loves Me
tk.9 Blues In The Night
tk.10 Blues In The Night (alternate take)
tk.12 All Of You
tk.14 Dancing In The Dark

See Also: BNJ-61018

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Can't We Be Friends	Kay Smith	December 7 1958
I Cover The Waterfront	John W. Green	December 7 1958
Somebody Loves Me	George Gershwin	December 7 1958
Dancing In The Dark	Arthur Schwartz	December 7 1958
Blues In The Night	Harold Arlen	December 7 1958
Side Two
Blues In The Night (Alternate Master)	Harold Arlen	December 7 1958
All Of You	Cole Porter	December 7 1958
Dancing In The Dark	Arthur Schwartz-Howard Dietz	December 7 1958
Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You (Alt. Take)	Andy Razaf-Don Redman	November 16 1958

Liner Notes

I'm very fortunate: I have a favorite piano player.

When I'm asked who that might be, I first go through the obligatory disclaimers. Of course Art Tatum was the greatest. And you can't deny McCoy Tyner or Bill Evans or Bud Powell their places in piano playing history, nor can you afford to miss Fats Waller or Thelonius Monk or any number of innovators. But my favorite piano player — that's Conrad "Sonny" Clark.

And I'll tell you why. Sonny's the most relaxed piano player I ever heard. His lines are like liquid, and they have an elegance and grace that is rare in musical improvisation. And, mostly, I like his musical attitude. He is off-hand, casual yet supremely confident. His music feels so good because of his blues roots, yet the construction of his lines is, finally, always mature. I write about him as if he were still playing — as, indeed, he is on this record — but, of course, he died in 1961 at the age of 30.

Although he was born on the East Coast (a small Pennsylvania mining town, in fact) his professional career was spent primarily in California. In 1951, he worked with Wardell Grey in Los Angeles, then moved to San Francisco to work for a year with Vido Musso and Oscar Pettiford. In 1953, he returned to LA. when his friend pianist Kenny Drew notified him he was leaving the Buddy DeFranco band and the piano chair would be available. Sonny got the gig and worked with De Franco for almost three years, touring Europe and the States. When he quit the band, it was to join the Howard Rumsey Allstars, permanently stationed at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California.

Sonny never really felt settled in California. Talking to Leonard Feather about his West Coast dues, he said, "I did have sort of a hard time trying to be comfortable in my playing (out there). The fellows on the West Coast have a different sort of feeling, a different approach to jazz." Finally, in 1957, Sonny hooked up with Dinah Washington, who was heading East at the time, "going along with her as accompanist more or less for the ride," as he put it.

Landing in New York, his career began to blossom. After brief stints with Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus, he appeared on a series of influential Blue Note recordings which featured, among others, Jackie McLean and Philly Joe Jones, players who he became heavily associated with during the late 50's. It was there, in New York, while riding the great heroin wave, that he collapsed and died, relatively broke and still practically unknown except among a handfull of jazz afficianados.

Buddy DeFranco, reminiscing about Clark's career recently, indicated that only his involvement with drugs prevented the pianist from becomming a greater force in the music world. "He had a chance to be famous," Buddy told me. "1 mean that in the best sense of the word. I don't know why he messed it up. He was a smart kid. You know, you meet a lot of cats that play great but they're dumb. But not Sonny. He was a bright young guy."

Others would say that heroin had very little to do with Sonny's relative obscurity today. Among them is trombonist Curtis Fuller, with whom Sonny often recorded as a sideman and leader. Fuller feels Sonny's career reflects just one more example of critical indifference to a fine black player who didn't make it in the white man's world. "Sonny wasn't a genius," Fuller told me, like a lot of us, he had to work at his trade. But he had his own style. And he was a beautiful man, and I'm just sorry that those of us who aren't writers, who can't go to Hollywood and become arrangers, well what can we do? We're just players and, consequently, we get knocked off."

If Sonny wasn't well known as a composer, still his playing was always outstanding for the compositional quality of his improvisation. And while many of his Blue Note dates featured songs composed by Sonny on the spot, simple head arrangements that are remarkable for their subtle melodies and hip inner construction, this compositional ability comes across primarily in his soloing, whether on original material or jazz standards.

Which brings us to the enclosed collection of trio material, all previously unreleased with the exception of "Gee Baby", which did appear on a Japanese Blue Note release. Featuring drummer Wes Landers, a Chicagoan who had briefly worked with Sonny back in the DeFranco band, and Clark's favorite bass player, Paul Chambers (with the exception of the track "Gee Baby" which includes Jymie Merritt on bass), these jazz chestnuts are all tastily roasted in the low smoking fire of Sonny Clark's soloing.

Certainly, all the titles will be familiar to even the most casual jazz-standard fan. One can hear in Sonny approach that subtle quality which made him so popular as an accompanist with great singers like Dinah Washington while, at the same time, that relaxed, relentless harmonic probing, which no doubt first attracted New York hard boppers Rollins, Mingus and McLean, is everywhere present. And although there are obvious touches here and there of pianists Sonny has listed as his favorites (Erroll Garner, George Shearing, Bud Powell), those long, loose flowing lines could only belong to one Conrad "Sonny" Clark.

— Ben Sidran

75th Anniversary CD Reissue Notes

In the '50s, jukeboxes were an important part of life in America. They were in every bar and diner across the country. For a nickel or a dime, you could select songs that would be played throughout the establishment. In urban cities, the bars in African-American neighborhoods were an important means of exposure for the recordings of jazz, blues and R & B artists. Blue Note Records used to edit a lot of the funky tracks from its albums and press them on 45 rpm for the jukebox trade. But this proved so profitable that Blue Note began recording sessions just for release on 45 rpm singles for the jukebox trade. Most of these sessions were by Blue Note soul star Jimmy Smith, but there were others including two done on November 16 and December 7, 1958 by Sonny Clark with Jymie Merritt or Paul Chambers on bass and Wes Landers on drums.

What distinguishes these sessions from a normal Sonny Clark sessions is that all of the material are familiar standards and the performances are short. Nonetheless, these two sessions show Sonny Clark to be a consummate pianist of the level of a Barry Harris or Tommy Flanagan, able to reinterpret standards with brilliant voicings and originality.

Originally issued in the '70s on two LPs, these sessions are now complete on one CD.

Michael Cuscuna