Pianist Sonny Clark, given the regularity with which he – in common with quite a few others – recorded for Blue Note either as a sideman or under their own name, might be described as the label’s house pianist. His hard-bop style was quite in keeping with what the label’s predominantly known for, despite the fact that the likes of Cecil Taylor were recording for it within a few years of Clark’s death.
Thanks in no small part to Clark’s heroin addiction, this book documents a life and talent wasted, despite the ample recorded legacy. He was a pianist and composer well versed in the various modern jazz ideas of the 1950s and early 1960s and to an extent to he bridged the divide between the US West Coast (cool) school and the testifying (hard-bop) East Coast school.
He was a talented modern-jazz pianist in an era when such individuals were thick on the ground, and by dint of talent and luck he got more breaks than many of them. That said, the demands of trying to make a living out of the music he loved were arguably greater than he – or the music – could meet. Derek Ansell’s artistic license in weaving together Clark’s musical output and his addiction is sympathetic and deft, and he paints a picture of a player who typified the popular notion of “the jazz musician” as a soul both of addictive tendencies and too sensitive to cope with the world and the indignities of reality.
Sonny Clark: Fragile Virtuoso, by Derek Ansell. Next Chapter, 261pp, pb. ISBN 978-4-8241-9701-6