Sonny Clark
Conrad Yeatis " Sonny " Clark ( born July 21, 1931 in Herminie, Pennsylvania, † January 13, 1963 in New York City, New York ) was an American jazz pianist and composer. His early death prevented Sonny Clark was able to consolidate its proper position among the pianists of the hard bop.
Life and work
Clark retired with 12 years to Pittsburgh and played bass and vibraphone in high school, but even from four years of piano. In 1951, he moved at the request of his brother, who was also a pianist, to California. He played in San Francisco with Vido Musso short and Oscar Pettiford and then moved to Los Angeles. In 1953 he made his first recording with Teddy Charles 's West Coasters ( Prestige ) with Wardell Gray. In 1953 he played in Los Angeles with numerous West Coast jazz musicians, which was more of an exception for black musicians. Among other things, he recorded with Art Pepper and 1953-1956 with Buddy DeFranco, with whom he also traveled through Europe in 1954 and recorded numerous records. In 1956 he played with the Lighthouse All Stars Howard Rumsey of, with Serge Chaloff, Frank Rosolino and Sonny Criss. After moving to New York in 1957, he took part in numerous sessions and approached the hard bop idiom. He accompanied Dinah Washington ( April 1957 in New York City ), but then worked as a freelancer and in our own trio. So he played with Lee Morgan, Charles Mingus, Lou Donaldson, Curtis Fuller and Sonny Rollins (on The Sound of Sonny, 1957).
Originally heavily influenced by Bud Powell, he developed his own, rhythmically accented style, Richard Cook as peppy, precisely articulated, with strange little figures of the left hand, which ran counter to the long extremely complicated right hand, describes. Cook criticized his Blue Note boards as a leader (starting in 1957 with Dial S for Sonny ) that he too little to fill his leadership, too much sound like companion and he raises most likely his plate Sonny Clark Trio because of the extroverted and imaginative play Trio out with Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers. Sonny Clark was in demand as a companion and can be heard on many Blue Note albums, such as by Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean, Kenny Burrell, Bennie Green ( "Soul Stirrin ' 1958), Clifford Jordan, Lee Morgan, Johnny Griffin and Dexter Gordon album Go. He published seven Blue Note albums of his own ( such as Cool Struttin ' and Leapin and Lopin ) that give it today with many fans a cult status. He was highly appreciated not only by fellow musicians, but also of other pianists (Bill Evans dedicated to him a piece of " NYC 's No Lark" ). Clark had his life strong drug and alcohol problems. Drug problems were probably also the reason why it came to longer breaks in 1959 in the recordings for Blue Note. After he was in late 1962 and early 1963 due to a leg infection in the hospital, he died a few days after the dismissal of a heart attack.
Published in 1985, John Zorn is a reminiscence project ( Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet, with Wayne Horvitz piano, Ray Drummond bass, Bobby Previte drums) to Clark with his compositions ( Voodoo ).