Gerald Clayton – Tributary Tales (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:50 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Motéma Music

Jazz pianist Gerald Clayton is an adept improviser and composer with a bent toward post-bop and straight-ahead jazz. The son of bassist/bandleader John Clayton, Gerald was born in the Netherlands but grew up in California. On his fourth album, Tributary Tales, pianist and composer Gerald Clayton traces paths of myriad streams — personal, experiential, intangible — that flow into one another, creating a musical narrative greater than the sum of his individual compositions.

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Gerald Clayton – Life Forum (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 59:54 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Concord Jazz

Gerald Clayton ‘Life Forum’ is a 12-song set combining Clayton’s highly skilled trio members, bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Justin Brown with saxophonists Logan Richardson and Dayna Stephens and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. Vocalists Gretchen Parlato and Sachal Vasandani and poet Carl Hancock Rux complete the ensemble. Clayton is an artist who does not work in a vacuum. Clayton is recognized by peers and public alike to hungrily seek opportunities which allow for creative musical exchanges with other artists. And he understands that any successful artistic venture requires listening as much as expressing, open-mindedness as well as respect for the input of others. It requires leadership and, most importantly, demands a shared love for the art form and each other. Clayton understands that these are the conditions that create a forum for something truly magical to emerge.

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Gerald Clayton – Happening: Live At The Village Vanguard (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:08 minutes | 1,42 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Blue Note Records

Pianist Gerald Clayton is set to release his Blue Note Records debut Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard out July 10. Recorded at the legendary NYC jazz club with a quintet of longtime collaborators—Logan Richardson on alto saxophone, Walter Smith III on tenor saxophone, Joe Sanders on bass, and Marcus Gilmore on drums—Happening spotlights Clayton’s layered identity as a leader. The quintet co-navigates four of Clayton’s original compositions including “A Light” and “Rejuvenation Agenda,” as well as Duke Ellington’s “Take the Coltrane,” while Clayton pares down to a trio for Bud Powell’s “Celia” and the standard “Body and Soul.”

“I called it Happening to highlight the fact that this music is living, that we have a whole lot of happenings throughout the year, and performances at the Village Vanguard are some of the most special of those happenings. It’s such a special, sacred place for the music. You really can feel the presence of what’s occurred in the room.”

To Clayton, the album’s poised impact has shifted in light of the global pandemic. “The idea of having a recording of a live concert takes on a new meaning now that we’re unable to actually gather anymore” he says. “I would hope that, when we do return to some kind of normalcy, people are more inspired than ever to recognize that this music is happening, that it’s a living art form. We need to actually go to those shows. We need to be in those rooms and be part of that experience. I hope this album can offer people a little bit of an escape from this isolation, that it transports them back to the time when we were all able to congregate and celebrate our shared love.”

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