AprilCadence2013

Jazz Stories Jay Clayton
my first album (i had recorded several, but the first album
under my name) was called jay clayton all out. That's
also when i re-met julian priester. i had met him years before
in chicago, when he was going to sessions and hanging
out, that's how long ago, but you know, we just said hello.
We re-met because i started teaching at naropa for three
summers, just as my album was coming out. and there was
a thing where heiner stadler - he's a composer, you don't
hear much about him, but i know during the whole revolution
in the 70's, he was always trying to get more jazz out there.
he had a very small label, but he helped me, he musically
produced it, he was just behind it. anyway, when it came
out, he sent it to joachim Berendt - he writes a lot on jazz,
he's a German guy, he was part of the Berlin jazz festival.
and he did a thing in this little town in Germany, it was a meeting every year.
he'd have a meeting of different instruments, one year it might be all clarinets,
maybe it's all bassists, you know, maybe you'd invite 5 clarinets and get a rhythm
section, and they'd record all week and then do a concert. and it's a summit, right.
so coincidentally right around the time my first album jay clayton all out came
out, heiner, who knew joachim, happened to send him the album. and i knew
that joachim Berendt knew who i was but probably hadn't heard me in years, or
whatever. so he must have been organizing this event for vocal improvisers right
around the time he got this album, i'm guessing and it must've pushed him over
about me, so he invited me, Bobby mcferrin, jeanne lee, urszula dudziak, and
lauren newton, who's an american singer who's been living in Germany for a long
time, sings very free. he invited us, and he commissioned five composers to write
for five improvising voices. i won't tell you who was on here, you're never gonna
believe it. Wonderful instrumentalists to play with. anyway, that was a big deal for
me because what happened was that album came out -Bobby was on the first one,
he got very famous right after that doing solo - it was such a success, because
we decided to do the second half of the program a cappella because we would get
together - the singers - and i had already done what i called a voice group in the
70s where i would just have vocalizing improv. so we decided we wanted to do the
whole second half of the concert a cappella. at first they were like "oh no!" but we
did it. and it was so successful that we were invited to donaueschingen, the other
big festival in europe, where hindemith and stockhausen, and more contemporary
music was presented, but they always had a jazz slot. By that time Bobby couldn't
do it, he was already on the road doing his solo thing, but we had various different
singers, for about ten years we toured. so that was a big one for me, because a lot
of people from europe probably know me only from that.
70 | CadenCe Magazine | april May June 2013