Pianist Sonny Clark started with Bud Powell as his musical role model but by the mid-1950s had his own irresistible style. Clark set the standard for hard bop musicians by mastering the bebop vocabulary while also looking ahead and not being shy to include soulful phrases, the blues, and ideas from other sources in his playing.

Sonny's Crib, which has the remarkable frontline of Donald Byrd, Curtis Fuller and John Coltrane, features many inspired solos, with Byrd and 'Trane competing with Clark for honors. "News For Lulu" (decades later recorded by John Zorn) and an uptempo "With A Song In My Heart" are among the gems heard on this intriguing date, a definitive hard bop session that still sounds fresh, lively and vital a half-century later.

Like all Music Matters Jazz releases, this audiophile vinyl reissue is mastered from the original analog tape and pressed on 180g virgin vinyl at RTI in Camarillo, CA. The highest quality gatefold cover features original session photography on the inside.

See more Sonny Clark records here.