For a free MP3 download of the track “Spring Samba” from Claudio Roditi’s new CD Simpatico, log on to: http://www.resonancerecords.org/downloads/ClaudioRoditi-SpringSamba.mp3 36 DOWNBEAT OCTOBER 2010 Mark sheldon
J O H N C l A Y T O N ‘Jazz Saved My life’ It was the second Tuesday of January, and the bassist, 57, was anticipating the final installment of an eight-night run at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola with the Clayton Brothers Band, which he co-leads with his brother, Jeff Clayton, to be directly followed by two days in the studio to record The New Song And Dance (ArtistShare), a follow-up to Brother To Brother, a 2010 Grammy nominee. He had arrived in New York directly from a week at Umbria Jazz Winter in Orvieto, Italy, where he performed four duos with bassist John Patitucci and another four with pianist Gerald Clayton, his son. On the previous evening at Dizzy’s, the only screaming came from a packed house of NEA Jazz Masters, who rose up and hollered in response to a surging, well-paced set. “That band is great,” 2010 awardee Kenny Barron said later, summing up the prevailing opinion. “It reminds me of why I wanted to start playing jazz in the first place.” Such approbation made sense: Since 1977, when the Claytons co-founded the unit, they’ve connected to the hip populism and presentational values that defined the musical production of such predecessors as the Adderley Brothers, Benny Golson’s Jazztet, Horace Silver, the Ray Brown–Gene Harris Trio and Count Basie. Now they’re a pan-generational ensemble, with 40-something trumpeter Terell Stafford sharing the front line with Jeff Clayton on alto sax and flute, and 20-somethings Gerald Clayton and Obed Calvaire on piano and drums. At Dizzy’s, CBB articulated old-school aesthetics in a non-formulaic manner, addressing sophisticated harmonic and rhythmic raw materials with a sell-the-song attitude and acute attention to detail. John Clayton radiated the cool, composed affect of which he spoke—alert to all the nuances, he smiled encouragement at his bandmates, goosing the flow with consistently melodic basslines and ebullient, surging-yet-relaxed grooves. “When I was 16, I studied with Ray Brown,” Clayton explained. “Milt Jackson was like an uncle to me at 17. Their music was extremely deep and serious, yet they had no problem allowing the joy that they were deriving from it to be expressed on their faces and in their body language.” Known as Ray Brown’s protege since those years, Clayton holds an undisputed position in the upper echelons of bass expression—in addition to his By Ted Panken One of John Clayton’s favorite sayings is that he doesn’t do stress. “I’d rather roll up my sleeves and get the job done,” he said. “I might have to go without sleeping, deal with difficult people, maybe have people scream at me—but it rolls off my back.” considerable jazz bona fides as both an ensemble player and soloist, his peer group gives him deep respect for having held the principal bass chair with the Amsterdam Philharmonic for five years during the 1980s. “One of John’s talents is picking things up quickly—understanding concepts,” said Jeff Clayton. “I practice long and hard. John practices smart—always has. In preparing to audition for the Amsterdam Philharmonic, he just added another hour or so to his practice.” “I was practicing a lot anyway, so I just added the orchestra audition material to what I was practicing,” John Clayton said matter-of-factly. “Classical is just another kind of music. You’ve still got to push the string down to the fingerboard. You have to play detached notes or legato notes, forte or piano. Now, the instrumentation or the groove or some other aesthetic might be different—you learn those things.” “I’ve always been analytical,” he added. “I’m more comfortable if I try to figure out why the characters in a situation say what they do or act as they do. Rather than play something from my lesson 300 times, I’ll play it 50 times, and each time analyze, say, what my elbow or wrist is doing.” Clayton has applied his penchant for compartmentalization and monofocus towards mastering various non-performative aspects of the music business—indeed, he does so many things so well that it is possible to overlook how distinctive a niche he occupies. “John is a visionary who says, ‘Five years from now, I’ll be here,’ and then gets there,’” said pianist Monty Alexander, with whom Clayton spent the better part of three years on the road during the middle ’70s. “When John says he’s going to do something and then it transpires, it’s not by chance,” his brother adds. “We would write down goal sheets and follow them; once we’ve made it to all of our goals, then we set new ones.” One platform is the area of composition and arrangement for small groups, big bands and orchestras, a craft that Clayton learned in the crucible of the late ’70s Count Basie Orchestra. While in Amsterdam, he continued to refine his aesthetic, creating charts for a radio big band. Upon returning to Los Angeles in 1986, he found steady work in the studios, and set to work establishing himself as a film writer. OCTOBER 2010 DOWNBEAT 37
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