JAY CLAYTON
MADE IN USA
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from left: Sascha von Oertzen, Anthony Cox,
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MADE IN USA
Sunnyside
SSC 1096D
5:35 McCoy Tyner & Sammy Cahn
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12:55 Don Thompson
i 5:43 Albeit Hague & Arnold Horwitt
1/7:15 Jerry Granelli / Jay Clayton & e. e. cummings
5:55 George Cables & Janice Jarrett
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I 5:23 Bill Engvick & Alec Wilder
6:29 Harry Warren & Mack Gordon
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11:13 Clayton, Cox & Granelli / Jay Clayton & e. e. cummings
SSC 1096D
*ay Clayton has been singing in her gently playful, exploratory 7 way for a long time, but it does¬
n’t seem so very long. I heard her first scatting blithely on an album with sister explorer jane
mm and they knocked my ears into Thursday morning. That was 1981. and it really seems like
r j green covered album, emphatically entitled All Out , on the tiny green-labelled Anima
hm\ green ;t< grass and spring shoots to these ears, a feast of scallions and spinach and bibb
'em the desert. It still does, and they still do. Jay sings, as Jane plays, with the eternally fresh verve
those that Coltrane made famous - Jay and the band make obeisance in the best way possible: blowing from the soul.
Jay and Gary sing the melody in unaccompanied unison, then weave their lines on the coda. The band does it again
with a sassier eastward bent on the final track, where Jay and Gary 7 again achieve sinuous interplay.
Young and Foolish is a touchstone for those wistfully missing their lost youth, a plaint for those who have forgot¬
ten how to fall in love easily and well. Jay's duo with George contrasts intriguingly to Tony Bennett's with Bill Evans.
Improvisation plays the major role in Jay's musical expression. On Raga and Let It Go, she scats with abandon,
using for lyrics those of an American poet whose celebration of giddy youth and yet uncompromising principles also set
many impressionable youths (including me) aflutter: e.e. cummings.
S it hard to figure out jay's secret: the opening buoyant waltz tells you that simplicity 7 and joy
Irmusic. Jay sings a gentle, seldom-heard love song, as simple as can be, with few note sub-
pi disarming candor and just a tentative bit of flight through the coda. That very 7 attitude
fountain of youth, one which fosters easy, dear, and essentially upbeat communication with
pgjjsicians, In fact, the blues-drenched non-blues that follows provides Jay’s only emotion-
Jgjned role on the entire album, one effectively echoed by Gary's weary plaint,
on f tctober 28, 1941 in Youngstown, Ohio, jay started singing in New York in 1963. Since
I performed and recorded worldwide with leading jazz and new music artists including
IjjMuhal Richard Abrams, John Gage, Julian Priester, Jane Ira Bloom, Nana Vasconcelos,
S^l^dowell and Bobby McFerrin. Today Jay is based In Seattle, Washington, where she teaches at
Cbtth College. She also teaches as guest professor in the jazz department at The University for Music
jgsd I iu\ ic Arts in Graz. Austria, in rotation with Sheila Jordan, Mark Murphy, and Andy Bey. Jay's
k Slug Your Story: I Practical (unite /or Learning and teaching the "Art of Jazz Singing" has
BR^-j)een published by Hans Gruber's Advance Music. You listeners are invited to visit Jay's web-
ilk site at www jayclayton.com.
Hk Coltrane means the world to many musicians. Toronto pianist/composer Don
Thompson's Lament continues the remembrances with devotion and reverence. Jay states
■IHk the simple hymnic song with great wannth and directness. Over a modal vamp - like
let all go—the
big small middling
tall bigger really the
biggest and all things-
let all go, dear
so comes love.
let them go
the truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and neithers-
you must let them go
they were born to go.
let it go
the smashed word brokm
open vow or the oath
cracked lengthwise
let it go, it was sworn to go
To open George's bright samba, I Told You So, Jay expresses joy squeaking playfully like a Brazilian cuica, then
transforms her voice into a flute section with a Boomerang digital delay - not overdubs. "There's more to life than a
tiny breeze [?] can hold." Amen! The lyric is a child’s taunting, sing-song response to an adult's denial of a subtly per¬
ceived truth; Amahl, Giancarlo Menotti's shepherd boy, might have sung it today to his Mom, who thrice denied his
improbable vision of the Magi at their door. Jerry's cowbell, Anthony's loping gait, and George's montuno wisps add to
the delight.
An unjustly neglected old Hany Warren favorite, l Wish / Knew, gets a tender-tough reading. Jay says: "I recently put
this tune in my book, and only just discovered the verse in the sheet music, provided by my always inspiring friend, com¬
poser Jerome Gray.” At Grey’s suggestion, Jay places the verse not at the front, but in the middle of her reading, after an
earnest scat chorus. She reminds me of the late Betty Carter on her round tones, off-beat inflections, intense candor, and
scat-wise derring-do.
To close, Jay harks back to that All Out set as she launches into Free Three . Jay taps e.e. once again on the out¬
going Random Mondays with a touching setting of these delightful lines that, for love of life, turn syntax and word
use on their heads. Once again she takes the final stanza and spins a coda of curlicues, queries, and unicorns.
in time of daffodils who know in time of dll sweet things
the goal of lining is to grow beyond whatever mind may comprehend
forgetting why, remember how remember seek, forgetting find
in time of lilacs who proclaim and in a mystery to be
the aim of waking is to dream when time from time shall set us free
remember so, forgetting seem forgetting me, remember me
in time of roses who amaze a re
here and now with paradise
forgetting if remember yes
Jay's comments on the session read like a little a family reunion. "These guys had not played in this particular
configuration before, though I knew the rapport would be there. We had good vibes all around. I'd never worked with
Gary Bartz; though I love his music, our paths had not yet crossed. George and I have known each other 30 years, yet
never get to gig; I knew George and Gary worked/recorded together recently. Jerry and I have enjoyed over 20 years of
collaboration, and I knew that George knew him from California. In 1998, Jerry and I made a quartet album, No
Secrets , with bassist Gary Peacock and trombonist Julian Priester. Last summer we reunited that quartet with Anthony
on bass. For this session, I brought in tunes from all over - eclectic, that's me! - and the guys played in both worlds,
free and straight. I like to collaborate with musicians who play who they are: I'm a kind of catalyst. We did the free
pieces in single takes and the standards in two."
Fred Bouchard
Monday, March 12, 2001
Fred Bouchard writes about jazz for Down Beat magazine and hosts "Crosscurrents" (WMBR-FM, 88.1 kHz, MIT Radio, Cambridge, MA.)
He too has an eponymous website: www.fredbouchard.com.
