Janmohamed 1!

Nashir Janmohamed

Professor Eddie Meadows

Ethno C122C

June 1st, 2017

The Life and Music of Gerald Clayton

Gerald Clayton is a modern pianist, composer, and improviser whose harmonic

sensibilities, impeccable piano technique, rhythmic mastery, and dulcet touch belie his years.

Born on May 11, 1984 in Utrecht, Netherlands and raised in Los Angeles, Gerald comes from an

extremely musical family. In fact, his profound and pre-mature development can most easily be

attributed to this familial context: his father is John Clayton, a world renowned bassist often

considered the musical heir of Ray Brown, and his uncle is Jeff Clayton, alto saxophonist who

played with Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, Frank Sinatra, and the Count Basie Orchestra,

among others. Gerald began studying piano at age seven, and went on to have his studies

bolstered by teachers at some of the greatest schools in America: Gerald was a student at the Los

Angeles County High School for the Arts (a school that has produced much diverse musical

talent, including Gretchen Parlato, Josh Groban, and Dillon Francis), USC's Thornton School of

Music (where he studied piano with Billy Childs), and the Manhattan School of Music (where he

studied with Kenny Barron). Given this context, Geralds profoundly developed music abilities

are more understandable, but still cause for acclaim.

Gerald is clearly rooted in the jazz tradition, with a great sense of swing and an ability to

accompany and contribute to the performances and recordings of jazz luminaries such as Charles

Lloyd, Diana Krall, Dianne Reeves, Terri Lyne Carrington, Dayna Stephens, Peter Bernstein,
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Avishai Cohen and the Clayton Brothers (his father and uncles band). What sets him apart as an

accompanist, however, are his contributions to the work of young composers and performers

such as Ambrose Akinmusire and Roy Hargrove. His own music is the summation of all these

musical knowledges and experiences, and through examining and analyzing his studio albums

(Two-Shade, Bond: The Paris Sessions, Life Forum, and Tributary Tales) and live performances

(as documented on YouTube), one can easily see his growth and artistry as a composer,

improviser, and pianist in the context of his diversely informed upbringing and professional

experience.

Gerald has been widely recognized for his musical ability and output; he took second

place in the 2006 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Piano Competition, and has also received

four Grammy nominations. His nominations have covered a range of categories, with some of

them being awarded for his own music, and others for his contributions to others. Gerald was

first nominated for Best Instrumental Composition for his song "Battle Circle" on the Clayton

Brothers album New Song and Dance. The next nomination was in recognition of his

performance on his debut solo album, Two-Shade, in 2009 - his rendition of Cole Porters All of

You earned him a nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Solo. His second and third albums,

Bond: The Paris Sessions & Life Forum, were both nominated for the category of Best Jazz

Instrumental Album, and his fourth record, Tributary Tales, is still within the window of

consideration for a nomination for the 2017 Grammy awards.

Historically, jazz pianists have paid their dues as accompanists to renowned and

established jazz artists; a process which engrains knowledge of the music business, humility, and

the necessity for a distinct musical personality in the young proteges. Red Garland (sideman to
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both Charlie Parker and Miles Davis), Bill Evans (sideman to Miles Davis), and McCoy Tyner

(sideman to John Coltrane) all followed the heretofore described career arc, and in a sense, were

Geralds musical forerunners. Each of these musicians contributed to and shaped the musical

vision and product of their respective bandleaders, and were hugely influential to the

development and proliferation of jazz piano when they began to work on their own artistry.

Geralds experience playing with luminaries such as Roy Hargrove, Ambrose Akinmusire,

Charles Lloyd, and the Clayton Brothers shaped his musicality, reactivity, and creativity into

unique and profound attributes that inspire his own playing and composing. Though these

elements can be found in other virtuosic young prodigies, such as Beka Goschiavilli and Joey

Alexander, they are often lacking in many pianists who prematurely embark on their solo

careers. Knowing how to thrive on the side of the bandstand in the service of making others

sound better is an extremely selfless and valuable talent too often overlooked, but Geralds

artistry is defined by this ability - every note he plays is in service of the music and the moment.

It is almost impossible to isolate individual moments in his comping that highlight his

aptitude as a sideman, but this is precisely what makes him such an efficient and effective

accompanist. There is an adage regarding bassists and their role as an accompanist - they are

doing their job right if no one notices they are there - that applies equally, if not more so to

pianists. Ambrose Akinmusire is a renowned young trumpeter who, among other accolades, was

the winner of both the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition and the Carmine Caruso

International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, two of the most prestigious competitions in jazz.

Gerald played on Akinmusires sophomore album entitled When the Heart Emerges Glistening,

and the performance of the Akinmusire composition, Confessions to My Unborn Daughter,

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exemplifies Geralds ability as an accompanist. Akinmusire opens the composition with an

angular and agonized solo exposition, Geralds entrance paves the way to a sweet and tempered

soliloquy soliloquy between the two voices, and finally, following the drastic and bombastic

entrance of bass and drums, Geralds reactive and melodious comping meld the contrasting

melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic frameworks to create a new and unified mood, energy and

dynamic contour.

A vision of Geralds expertise as a more active accompanist can be seen through his work

on a recording of the Charles Lloyd New Quartet playing a blues at the Teano Jazz Festival. The

recording shows Geralds technical virtuosity, creativity as an accompanist, ability to manipulate

and displace rhythms, and an aptitude for superimposing complex meters and harmonies onto

simpler song forms. Joe Sanders takes the first solo in the performance, and Geralds comping

drives and propels Sanders to new heights. Typically, jazz bass solos are the one chance everyone

gets to check out and take a breather from the music, especially on longer gigs or sessions; many

great recordings consist of pianists playing choruses of whole notes under bass solos, which is

hardly conducive to creating a sense of groove and quickly causes the listener to lose interest.

Gerald, however, uses the full range of the piano in accordance with Sanders melodic lines -

when Sanders is in thumb position, Gerald will use the lowest register of the piano, and vice

verse when Sanderss solo contours toward the lower range of his instrument. Gerald is equally

reactive rhythmically - he will catch the rhythms of the improvisation, using his vast historical

knowledge of the jazz canon to try and predict rhythmic landmarks towards which the solo is

headed, and will often intentionally vary them to create a heightened sense of tension, which he

simultaneously releases harmonically and rhythmically. Again, this heightened sense of

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awareness and responsiveness is what sets Gerald apart as an accompanist, particularly because

when he employs this knowledge and ability within the context of his own improvisations and

compositions, there is a genuine feel of connection and camaraderie between the musicians and

the audience.

Though Gerald has collaborated and informed a plethora of new music (Gerald has

recorded 38 albums since 2003, 31 with non-identical groups), none of his recordings as a

sideman have been as influential as his contribution to Roy Hargroves jazz standard, Strasbourg/

St. Denis. A jazz standard is, as defined by Jason Parker, a musical composition which is an

important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known,

performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. Most standards in

the jazz repertoire were composed decades ago in the height of the swing, tin-pan alley, bop, or

post-bop era, and finding a modern composition that deserves the title of standard more than

Roy Hargroves Strasbourg-St. Denis would be quite the undertaking. The song is an unofficial

hallmark of jazz education, and it has been paid tribute to ad infinitum; by high school combos,

big bands, and individual artists at both low and high profile performances. The tune is

characterized by a pentatonic riff-based melody with simple diatonic chord changes, but it is

brought to life by a groove atypical of modern jazz compositions. Red Clay is the only tune

comparable in terms of impact, feeling, and widespread tribute, and not even that song is played

as much as Strasbourg! Gerald is almost singlehandedly responsible for the dancelike feeling of

the composition - his lilting piano intro shapes and creates the desired affect a mere eight bars.

He mutes the piano strings with his right hand to achieve a timbral shift, making his piano sound

more like a guitar to fit more in the vein of swung/straight-eighth notes funk. His contribution
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doesnt stop there; as the first soloist on the recording, he has the power to take the melodic and

rhythmic material from the melody and truly develop it. Even though the only context for his

improvisation is the existing framework of the tune, as opposed to the melodic material of

soloists preceding him, he rises to the challenge and takes the band and audience on a thrilling

and adventurous musical ride, starting with simple motivic development, moving on to tritone

substitution, and climaxing with gospel based trills and Oscar Peterson-style block chords.

Prolific accompanist that he is, Gerald is perhaps most effective when he utilizes his

arranging and orchestration abilities to arrange and compose his own music. Some of his most

prolific and inspired material stems from a knowledge and manipulation of jazz standards played

over the entire development of jazz. Through examining his renditions of Cole Porters All of

You, Jerome Kerns All the Things You Are, and Dizzy Gillespies Con Alma, we can see the

seeds of his compositional prowess, as well as his remarked ability to reimagine existing musical

material to create an entirely new and original project. Each of these three arrangements are

special for reasons all their own, and they all augment and supplement particular aspects of the

musical framework.

From a rhythmic standpoint, Geralds rendition of All the Things You Are is (arguably)

the most complex, and accordingly the most impressive from a technical standpoint. The tune

follows the conventional harmonic and melodic structure of Kerns original framework albeit a

couple subtle reharmonizations. The arrangement starts with the standard intro, moving between

Db7 and C7; next, the melody is stated; after, follows the solo section - piano improvises first,

and then bass and drums trade sections (i.e. A - bass, A - drums, B - bass, A - drums); finally,

the trio plays the head out, and fades out playing the vamp from the intro. Structurally,
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melodically, and harmonically, the rendition is practically identical to Kerns, but the rhythmic

modification turns the composition on its head, and gives the tune a completely new character.

The intro vamp alternates between the time signatures of 7/4, 6/4 and 5/4, cycling through the

two key centers until the rhythmic cycle completes three times (Db 7/4, C 6/4, Db 5/4, C 7/4, Db

6/4, C 5/4, Db 7/4, C 6/4, Db 5/4) before playing C7 for a bar of 7/4 to lead into the initial

melodic statement. This vamp is a foreshadowing of the rhythmic schematic for the entire tune;

the first two A sections are in 7/4, the bridge is in 6/4, and the last A section is in 5/4. However,

as opposed to augmenting the bars from 4/4 to their corresponding time signature (i.e. Fm7 7/4,

Bbm7 7/4, Eb7 7/4, etc), Gerald diminutes the bars, such that two bars comprise the feeling of

one bigger bar. For example, the first A sections harmonic rhythm is as follows: Fm7 4/4, Bbm7

3/4, Eb7 4/4, AbM7 3/4, DbM7 4/4, G7 3/4, CM7 4/4, CM7 3/4. The bridge and last A are

diminuted in a similar manner; during the bridge, two bars of 4/4 become two bars of 3/4, and in

the last A section, one bar becomes a bar of 3/4 and the next becomes a bar of 2/4. While, in

theory, this might not seem too abstract, in practice, this is an extremely complex and advanced

rhythmic concept, one that Geralds trio (composed of Gerald, Joe Sanders, and Justin Brown)

executes effortlessly.

Another example of Geralds compositional profundity is seen through an analysis of his

trio rendition of Dizzy Gillespies Con Alma. Though Gerald first recorded this arrangement as a

solo piano piece on his album Two-Shade, the trio arrangement is particularly useful in that in

addition to showing his reharmonization ideas, it also shows his skills as an orchestrator. The

original Gillespie composition is in the key of E major, but the ending of each section resolves in

a way that hints at the doorway of new keys that Gillespie chose not to explore. The most
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obvious is at the ending of the bridge, where a ii-V to Eb major resolves deceptively to E major,

but the A sections also end in a way that, though interesting, sounds unresolved to the ear. The A

section ends in the key of C major (no sharps, no flats), and there exists a sharp (pun intended)

disparity between this tonality and the one at the beginning of the second A, and at the repeat of

the whole form (E major (4 sharps)); the end of the A section features a sudden transition from

Cmaj7 to the first chord of the bridge, Cm7b5. Geralds reharm, like his rhythmic modification to

All the Things You Are, is so simple, but for this reason, so effective. He plays the first A section

in the key of E major (the original key), the second A in the key of F, the bridge in the original

key, and the last A in the key of Eb. This simple modification clears up all the harmonic issues

outlined previously. Following the CM7 chord at the end of the first A section, the first chord of

the second A, FM7, has the feeling of continuity and context; following the DbM7 chord at the

end of the second A, the Cm7b5 chord at the start of the bridge feels as if it is an extension of the

harmonic motion of the previous section; the ii-V at the end of the bridge resolves in the

direction the ear wants it to go (by going to EbM7 instead of EM7); finally, the BM7 at the end

of the last A leads perfectly into the key of E major at the top of the form.

Geralds subtle choices have far reaching effects, and it seems that this is where true

creativity lies; anyone can grab a paint bucket, throw it at a wall, yell jazz, and claim that no one

else has done anything similar. While they may be right, Geralds (albeit more simplistic)

innovations and contributions are always in the service of the music, informed by a knowledge

and respect for jazz history and tradition, and truly a joy to listen to.
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Works Cited

Collar, Matt. "Gerald Clayton Artist Biography." All Music. Web. 20 May 2017.

"Past Winers and Judges of Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Competition." Thelonious Monk

Institute of Jazz. Web. 20 May 2017.

Eisensmith, Kevin. "The 2007 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition".

International Trumpet Guild. Retrieved 20 May 2017.

Bilawsky, Dan. "The Clayton Brothers: The New Song And Dance." All About Jazz. N.p., 31

Dec. 2010. Web. 20 May 2017.

"Discography." Gerald Clayton. Web. 20 May 2017.

"Confessions To My Unborn Daughter by Ambrose Akinmusire." YouTube. YouTube, 8 Apr.

2011. Web. 20 May 2017.

"TEANO JAZZ 2014 - Charles Lloyd New Quartet." YouTube. YouTube, 8 Sep. 2014. Web. 20

May 2017.

Parker, Jason. "Song Of The Day: Roy Hargroves Strasbourg-St. Denis." Jazz24. N.p., n.d.

Web. 20 May 2017.

"Roy Hargrove Quintet - Strasbourg/Saint Denis." YouTube. YouTube, 01 Oct. 2010. Web. 20

May 2017.

"Gerald Clayton Trio - Live at The New Morning (Paris, 2010)" YouTube. YouTube, May 1,

2014. Web. 20 May 2017.

"All the Things You Are by Gerald Clayton." YouTube. YouTube, 13 Feb. 2015. Web. 20 May

2017.