Cashbox : 01/18/1958

It’s the young pianist’s initial effort as a leader, and he has a lot to contribute to the jazz scene. Clark has an excellent supporting cast in such jazz notables as Hank Mobley (Tenor sax), and Art Farmer (Trumpet), as well as trombonist Curtis Fuller, bassist Wilbur Ware, and Louis Hayes on drums. The tunes, with the exception of Love Walked In and It Could Happen To You, are all Clark originals. A welcome addition to the jazz shelf.

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Down Beat : 04/03/1958
Don Gold : 3.5 stars

Clark, 26, has worked with top jazzmen on both coasts. He is joined here by the mature horn of Farmer, the experience of Mobley, the J.J. Johnson echoes of Fuller, Ware‘s impressive bass sound, and Hayes in a series of variations on bop themes and two standards.

Farmer is strikingly lyrical throughout. Mobley plays with greater ideational strength than I can remember hearing from him on record. Fuller remains derivative, but maintains signs of coming individuality. Ware is a pillar of strength. Hayes keeps cooking.

Clark, carrying on the Bud Powell tradition, but seeking his own niche, plays effectively here, in a pleasantly relaxed groove on the one trio track, Walked, and compassionately on the balladic interpretation of Happen. His solo is one of a series of fluent statements on his own Bootin’. His charts, however, are more jumping off points than all-encompassing entities.

Clark plays with ease and indicates here that he may be making more substantial contributions in sessions to come. More emphases on organization could be one desired aim in such sessions.

This is a better-than-average, but not shockingly exciting, blowing session. As a showcase for Clark’s ability, and the potential inherent in his efforts, it is of value.

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Liner Notes by Robert Levin

Dial S for Sonny, Sonny Clark‘s first LP as a leader, represents a kind of “homecoming” token for the diminutive young pianist who recently returned east after a five year stay on the west coast. Sonny’s lengthy association with the “West Coast” school has provided him with a broader perspective and understanding, than have most musicians, of the various routes modern jazz is taking and has enabled him to choose his own direction intelligently. The knowledge he has gained has led him to decide that his “direction” points eastward but this preference does not signify a disrespect for the “West Coasters”, nor does it suggest that Sonny doubts or disputes the worth of validity of their music. He explains it this way.

“Jazz is jazz wherever it’s played. The whole thing has to do with the individual and his conception towards jazz. The thing is that my way of playing jazz is different from the way most of the fellows out west play. I’d rather work in the east because what is played here is closer to the traditional meaning of jazz. They’re getting away from tradition out west – combining jazz with classical music and playing chamber music type jazz. What they play is really very good, but it’s just not the way I want to play. That’s why I came back east.”

Igor Stravinsky, in his “Poetics of Music” says, “A real tradition is not the relic of a past irretrievably gone; it is a living force that animates and informs the present.” Stravinsky was referring to classical music but the same holds true in jazz and Sonny Clark is an example of the musician whose roots are firmly grounded in jazz tradition. Throughout his playing there can be detected a strong undercurrent of the blues, even when what he is playing is apart from the blues, and this quality in Sonny reminds me of Horace Silver. Sonny does not sound particularly like Horace, but both pianists have in common a profound reverence for their origins and at not time do they use the blues form superficially. It is an inherent and constant part of them.

Sonny Clark was born in Pittsburgh on July 21, 1931 and began studying the piano when he was four. When he was only six he was featured on several “Amateur Hour” radio programs playing Boogie Woogie. He became interested in jazz around 1945 when he heard the Basie and Ellington bands over the radio and Fats Waller and Art Tatum records. He played bass and vibes in his high school band and was also a featured piano soloist. While still in high school he worked around the Pittsburgh area with teenage dance bands. In 1951, when his mother died, he went west with an older brother.

His first stop was San Francisco where he gigged with Vido Musso and Oscar Pettiford. He led his own trio at the “Down Beat” for awhile before traveling south to Los Angeles where he “worked casually with practically everyone in town;” Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, Art Farmer, Anita O’Day, Stan Getz, Barney Kessel, Zoot Sims, Art Pepper, Tal Farlow, Shorty Rogers, Shelley Manne, etc. In 1954 he joined Buddy DeFranco for an extensive two and a half year tour of the United States and Europe visiting such countries as Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and France. When he returned to L.A. he joined the “Lighthouse All-Stars” with Bud Shank, Stan Levey, Bob Cooper, Frank Rosolino, Conte Candoli and Howard Rumsey. He came to New York in April of 1957 with Dinah Washington, working his way across the states with her, and gigged with J.R. Monterose at “Birdland,” Sonny Rollins and Charlie Mingus. He also recorded with Curtis Fuller (BLP 1572) and the Chicago altoist John Jenkins (BLP 1573).

Sonny names as his most important influences Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk and lists a variety of musicians as being his favorites; Hank Jones, Art Taylor, Philly Joe Jones, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, Roy Haynes, Louis Hayes, Paul Chambers, Percy Heath, Wilbur Ware, Oscar Pettiford, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Art Farmer, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins, Cliff Jordan, Jackie McLean, Sonny Stitt, Zoot Sims, Curtis Fuller, Hank Mobley, Milt Jackson, Kenny Burrell, Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow.

Sonny handpicked the musicians used on this date. All have recorded previously for Blue Note.

“I jammed with Wilbur Ware in Chicago in 1954 while I was touring with DeFranco. He knocked me out! I knew Art Farmer from the coast and I’ve always liked him. I heard Curtis Fuller with Dizzy Gillespie’s band and Louis Hayes with Horace Silver’s quintet and I think they’re going to be great ones someday. I never heard Hank Mobley in person until I came to New York but I listened to his records with the Jazz Messengers and dug him very much. All these guys play in my style and I was very happy working with them and very satisfied with the results.”

The four originals in this set are by Sonny. The title tune, Dial S For Sonny, has a moody, minor theme and funky, expressive solos by Mobley, Fuller, Farmer, Clark and Ware. Wilber comments again, briefly but significantly, after the closing restatement of the theme.

Bootin’ It is a bright, happy opus with Sonny’s right hand moving freely and delightfully. Curtis’ gutty trombone, Hank’s flowing tenor and Art’s sharply biting trumpet (with Curtis and Hank riffing behind him) swing buoyantly in keeping with the “Sonny” atmosphere suggested by the theme. Sonny and each of the horns engage in a brace of exciting exchanges with Hayes before the close.

It Could Happen To You opens with a soulful Farmer, perhaps bemoaning the fact that it happened but, turned out all wrong. Sonny, Hank and Curtis show their compassion with pretty, brooding statements of their own.

Sonny’s Mood is spritely and exhilarating and rubs off on Art, Hank, Curtis and then Sonny in that order. The same mood is continued with Shoutin’ On A Riff an infectious romper with Sonny, the horns and Louis all getting a chance to come up and blow at length.

Love Walked In is used as a solo vehicle for Sonny with Wilbur and Louis as his accompanists. Sonny demonstrates his imaginative way with a melody and his inherent swinging qualities quite well here.

Once again Blue Note is to be commended for offering full exposure to a worthy young talent. Sonny Clark is a sincere and likable man with something to say and herein given the chance shows himself to be an important new voice on the jazz scene.