Sonny Clark
piano
Bebop and hard bop pianist of the 1950s, one of the out-of-town pianists who came to Detroit looking for Barry and became his friend, and, by Barry’s account, one of the musicians helped by the Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter.
- mentions
- 3
- recordings
- 3
- Barry speaking
- 3
What Barry says
While Barry was still living in Detroit, he was known well beyond it. Musicians passing through asked for him, and Sonny Clark is the first pianist he names, with Walter Davis, among the New York players who came looking for him.
The Spirit of Bebop25:44Interview: Detroit and after3:31Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶123unknown (JazzTimes; the byline is missing on the current site), Barry Harris: Teacher Man ¶7
Barry supposed someone must have told them to look up the pianist in Detroit. Asked what they wanted from him, he says they had probably just heard he could play, and they became good friends.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶123Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶125
Sonny Clark is on Barry’s list of the musicians who came to his house in Detroit, where they knew he would be sitting at the piano, alongside Joe Henderson, Roland Hanna, Sonny Red, John Coltrane and Frank Foster.
Ep.3 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris0:331:08
Barry names Sonny Clark with Monk and himself among the many musicians who owed thanks to the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, a jazz lover who became their benefactress and helped them out of poverty.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶331Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶333
In his own words
A lot of piano players, like Sonny Clark, came to Detroit looking for me
when musicians came to town, they came looking for me, you know. Sonny Clarke, Walter Davis... It’s like somebody must have told them, “you better look up that pianist in Detroit” or something.
They knew that I would be sitting at the piano, so they’d come to my house and we’d practice jazz... See all these people, Sonny Clark, all of them came to my house
We could mention that Monk and myself, Sonny Clark, a lot of musicians were very thankful to a lady... who loved jazz and became a benefactress for all of us
Every mention
3 moments in the recordings, 3 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
The Spirit of Bebop
- 25:44
Named first, with Walter Davis, among the New York players who came to Detroit looking for Barry
Ep.3 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris
- 0:33
Among the musicians who came to Barry’s Detroit house, where he was always at the piano
Interview: Detroit and after
- 3:31
Caption reads ‘Sunday Clark’: among pianists who came to Detroit looking for its players
In the interviews and notes
Barry places the visits after he started spending time on Detroit’s West Side, around the time of his year at college and his marriage. Musicians coming to town, Sonny Clark and Walter Davis among them, asked for him, and they all became good friends.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶123Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶125
Near the end of the interview, Barry makes a point of naming the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, born a Rothschild, as the benefactress who helped Monk, Sonny Clark, Art Blakey, himself and many others out of poverty.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶331Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶333
Barry tells JazzTimes that many pianists, Sonny Clark among them, came to Detroit to find him, and that most Detroit players passed through his house. He became a teacher, he says, without meaning to, simply because he knew a little more.
unknown (JazzTimes; the byline is missing on the current site), Barry Harris: Teacher Man ¶7
Drawing on Paul Berliner, de Lima lists Sonny Clark with Yusef Lateef, Pepper Adams, Donald Byrd and Charles McPherson as musicians who came to Detroit to study with Barry and look into his method.
In a post on coded tune titles, Tom Cleary notes that Bill Evans’s ‘N.Y.C.’s No Lark’ is an anagram and an elegy for Sonny Clark, in the same family of word games as Barry’s ‘Mutattra’, Art Tatum’s name spelled backwards.
Tom Cleary (University of Vermont), Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris: anagrams ¶7
Recordings that name them
Barry’s performances and records in the archive that credit or name them.
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.