“Wander Away”

By Steve Swallow

“Sonny Clark was around when I first came to New York. His touch on the piano would just melt your heart in an instant, he was a magnificent player and absolutely incapable of ordering his life to the extent that you could say, “Sonny, I’ve got a gig for you, you have to be at Birdland Tuesday at 9pm.”

It was absurd that he would make that, but he showed at the session places and the loft places that were open for playing at any time in those days. He would sit down and play brilliantly for a couple of hours and wander away.

In the early 1960’s W. Eugene Smith’s loft was a focal point for jam sessions. This was a building where Hal Overton, the composer had a floor, and rehearsals for The Thelonious Monk Town Hall Band took place. There were sessions going on all day and all night in that loft, and several others that were up and down 6th Avenue. Ronnie Free, the drummer, was a Denison at one time, he was the nominal renter of the loft that was ground zero for sessions and where I played with Sonny Clark on several occasions. It was the flower district, where wholesale flower companies had their shops. At seven o’clock in the morning the trucks would arrive from the country side and dump off tons and tons of fresh flowers. This wonderful scent would rise up to the lofts. We’d be, at that point, just about finishing up for the night. Life began around five o’clock (AM) when this part of Manhattan would fall silent, when the businesses who were there would close up, and the people would go home.

All of a sudden another New York would rise up. It was those of us who stayed up all night learning how to play music. It was a wonderful enchanted environment in the Chelsea neighborhood