July 27, 2026
Blue Note Records has announced the Sept. 25 release of Sonny Clark The Art Of The Trio, a special 2-LP Tone Poet Vinyl Set that was produced for release by Joe Harley and mastered AAA directly from the original analog master tapes by Kevin Gray. Pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, the LPs come packaged in a deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket which includes a booklet. The set is available for pre-order now on the Blue Note Store.
Clark was perhaps the quintessential hard bop pianist, possessed of an unfailingly swinging style that was imbued with grace and sophistication. His own compelling original compositions were heard on numerous late-1950s Blue Note classics including the sextet/quintet sessions Dial ‘S’ For Sonny, Sonny’s Crib, and Cool Struttin’, but Clark also recorded a series of sublime piano trio dates for Blue Note that focused entirely on standards from the Great American Songbook and leading jazz composers of the day as heard on The Art Of The Trio.
Recorded in October 1957 with bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones, the album Sonny Clark Trio was released in the Spring of 1958 as BLP 1569, after which Clark would return to Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack studio twice later that year to reprise the trio format; in November with bassist Jymie Merritt and drummer Wes Landers, and again in December with Chambers and Landers. Those recordings, along with alternate takes from the Sonny Clark Trio session, would later be released in Japan as Blues In The Night and The Art Of The Trio, and are compiled into a single vinyl package for the first time here along with a booklet featuring new liner notes by Syd Schwartz, original liner notes by Ben Sidran and Bob Porter, and never-before-seen photos by Francis Wolff.
“Many people are completely unaware of these recordings by Sonny Clark,” says Harley. “I picked them up on Japanese-only editions back in the ‘70s and found myself returning to them repeatedly over the years. Sonny transforms these beloved standards into intimate conversations that tell their stories with uncommon honesty, lyricism, and swing.”
