Sonny Clark Dial S For Sonny Blue Note 1570 Original Mono LP RVG/ear Deep Groove

$

788

Sonny Clark - Dial "S" For Sonny - Blue Note 1570
Original pressing with deep grooves & RVG/ear dead-wax stamps ... No ® on center labels
Condition (play-test/Goldmine) - 
Record: VG+, quiet with minimal noise & the rare inoffensive pop  Cover : VG --- slight ring wear on back; wear to sides (but spine intact / no seam splits)

After having worked as a sideman in the rhythm sections of such Blue Note luminaries as Hank Mobley, Curtis Fuller et al., in 1957 Alfred Lion and Ike Quebec persuaded Sonny to return to New York from the West coast with the promise of being given his own date as a leader. (While Alfred Lion was always listed as the producer at Blue Note, it was in fact Tenor player Ike Quebec who put together and supervised most of the 50’s and 60’s sessions until he died in 1963... to be replaced by pianist composer Duke Pearson who continued in that “secret producer” role even after Lion sold the label to Liberty Records in 1965.)

Sonny was always evolving his own style starting as an amalgam of the linear lines of Powell mixed with the “funk” brought to the hard bop movement by Horace Silver who also influenced Sonny’s beautiful rhythmic comping mixed with newer harmonic concepts of Monk, Elmo Hope and Kenny Drew. Above all, Sonny’s linier right hand moved rhythmically forward telling a super melodic story that always flowed through and around the changes of the “tune” while his left hand chording was rhythmic, sometimes minimal but never predictable. His composition Sonny’s Mood, to me, lays the groundwork for Sonny’s Hard Bop “Funkular” post-bop tunes that were beginning to be the hallmark of emerging Blue Note composers of that time such as Hank Mobley, Clifford Jordon, Duke Jordon and others.   Sonny selected his sidemen from the Blue Note stable of sympathetic players at the time: Art Farmer, Mobley and Fuller provided an established “Blue Note” beefy front line. If you listen carefully to Wilber Ware’s strong and full bass sound heard here, along with his very original solo ideas, I believe you will hear a very advanced conception for a bass player at that time.  Louis Hayes, fresh from the Horace Silver band, was also a kindred spirit of the emerging Blue Note hard bop sound of the late 50’s and 60’s.