BNJ-61017

Sonny Clark Trio Volume 2

Released - February 21,1985

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, October 13, 1957
Sonny Clark, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.

tk.2 I Didn't Know What Time It Was (alternate take)
tk.5 Two Bass Hit (alternate take)
tk.9 Tadd's Delight (alternate take)

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

tk.3 Black Velvet
tk.4 I'm Just A Lucky So And So
tk.5 Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You
tk.8 Ain't No Use
tk.9 The Breeze And I
tk.13 I Can't Give You Anything But Love

See Also: GXF-3069

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Tadd's Delight [Alternate Take]	Tadd Dameron	October 13 1957
Two Bass Hit [Alternate Take]	J. Lewis-D. Gillespie	October 13 1957
I Didn't Know What Time It Was [Alternate Take]	R. Rodgers-L. Hart	October 13 1957
Ain't No Use	Rudy Stevenson	November 16 1958
Side Two
Black Velvet	Illinois Jacquet-Jimmy Mundy	November 16 1958
I'm Just a Lucky So-and-So	Mack David, Duke Ellington	November 16 1958
Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You	Andy Razaf, Don Redman	November 16 1958
The Breeze and I	Camarata-Lecuona-Stillman	November 16 1958
I Can't Give You Anything But Love	Dorothy Fields-Jimmy McHugh	November 16 1958

Liner Notes

When the definitive history of the modern jazz era is written, there will be a chapter on heroin. No doubt there were heroin addicts before Charlie Parker, and there are probably some among the jazz musicians of today, but thankfully, the pervasive influence of the drug is pretty much a thing of the past. But in the 40s and 50s, the image of the junkie musician was everywhere. One critic went so far as to suggest that one couldn't assemble a good big band without at least one addict. It is hard to determine just how many record dates were made or list because of heroin, or whether certain musicians played with or did not play with certain other musicians because of the drug. We do know that heroin kills. It killed Sonny Clark.

Heroin was responsible for any number of other deaths among the post World War II generation of jazz musicians., but in some ways the loss of Sonny Clark hurts more than any of them. By 1946, Bud Powell had demonstrated the best way to play bebop piano. It was not the only way to play, but surely the best way. Yet by 1949, the personal demons of Bud Powell had begun to dominate him and his brilliance after that time was an occasional thing. To be sure, there were performances that showed flashes of the early genius, but there was little in the way of consistency. Of the players who followed Powell - chronologically and musically - Sonny Clark was the best. Not the only one, but the best.

It is possible to compare Sonny Clark with Wardell Gray in many ways. Gray, like Clark, captured the essence of a model (Lester Young) and brought enough of his personality to the basic style to forge a personal mode of expression which, while not innovative, could improve, in some ways, on the original. Each man was under-recorded and had an active recording career of roughly ten years. Heroin also helped kill Wardell Gray.

We are fortunate that Alfred Lion of Blue Note heard Sonny Clark better than anyone while he was alive. He was not the only one to hear Clark's brilliance, but he was the only one who recorded him. On fact, between 1957 and 1962, Sonny Clark was the pianist on more Blue Note sessions than anyone else. In retrospect, it is easy to see why. Sonny Clark rarely put anything uninspired on record whether the session was his own or that of some other leader.

Two of the three trios sessions which Clark recorded for Blue Note are represented here. The earliest is with Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, as fine a bass and drums combination as anyone has ever heard. The three tunes are all alternate masters from the versions issued on Blue Note 1579. "Tadd's Delight" kicks things off and immediately we notice one difference: Philly is playing brushes! The arrangement is identical to the original master and as a demonstration of this trio's ability to keep consistent time, it should be noted that the playing time of this performance and "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" are virtually identical to that of the original master. If the melody sounds familiar, you should know that the composer's original title for this piece was "Sid's Delight," and it acquired this title after Miles Davis' 1956 recording of the tune.

The arrangement of both "Two Bass Hit" and "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" are unchanged from the originals. Indeed it is a rare Blue Note alternate take that differs substantially in arrangement from its original because it was Alfred Lion's practice to rehearse prior to recording and to come to his sessions prepared with the knowledge of how long each piece was laid out and to have a reasonable knowledge of how long each piece would run. This is in market contrast to the way other labels made records in the 50s.

The remaining sides have been issued previously (LNJ 70079), but there are some significant differences. On that LP, a wrong master was used for "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You" and mono dubs were used for the source. Here we get the session in its original stereo from along with the original master of "Gee, Baby." The alternate master of "Gee, Baby" now appears on Blues In The Nigh (GXF 3051). These performances were originally issued in America only on 45 rpm singles. The American juke box industry was very likely the reason for the material chosen here. Red Garland's trio records were quite popular juke box items (as were Ahmad Jamal's) and it seems likely that Blue Note wanted to explore this direction with Clark. "Ain't No Use" was a popular tune of the days in Dakota Staton's version. Illinois Jacquet and Jimmy Mundy's "Black Velvet" (also known as "Don't Cha Go Away Mad"), Duke Ellington's "Just A Lucky So And So,* and Don Redman's "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good To You" were strong, bluesy, melodies that lent themselves to Sonny's melodic interpretations. "The Breeze And I" is one of those adaptable melodies which seem to in favor with jazzmen year in and year out. Sonny's graceful singing lines really come alive here, yet one can't help feeling that if he were playing with Paul Chambers and Philly Joe, he would approach the tune differently. The blockchorded melody statement of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" is quite reminiscent of Red Garland.

But, too soon, we come to the close. Unless by some miracle the extremely rare (less than 1,000 pressed!) Jazz West date with James Clay and Lawrence Marable appears, we have come to the end of Sonny Clark's Blue Note records and quite possibly, the end of all his records. Perhaps some poorly recorded private tapes will surface but that is not the same thing. Sonny Clark made nine albums for Blue Note and four have been issued only in Japan. There is on better tribute to the musical taste of the Japanese people that the fact that seventeen years after his death, the name and the music of Conrad Yeatis "Sonny" Clark (July 21, 1931 - January 13, 1963) has not been allowed to die.

-BOB PORTER