July 10, 2020
More than a music venue, New York’s Village Vanguard serves as a meeting place for past and present expression. Red double doors at the corner of 7th Avenue South and Perry Street swing open to reveal the transformation of a lineage through time. Historic sets from Miles, Coltrane, Carmen McRae, Monk and Horace Silver haunt the bandstand. And the artists who perform weeklong bookings work to honor the legacy of those spirits.
From this vantage point Gerald Clayton releases his Blue Note debut Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard, recorded over six nights at the legendary spot in April 2019. “It’s such a special, sacred place for the music,” says Clayton. “You really can feel the presence of what’s occurred in the room.”
Occurrences, what Clayton calls “happenings,” reflect the level of trust artists have in one another to hit “record” outside the studio. His quintet, featuring longtime collaborators Logan Richardson on alto, Walter Smith III on tenor, Joe Sanders on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums, can’t help but capture the raw realness of what happens in that sacred space. “Only a fraction of the magic in the room can exist outside of the moment,” says Clayton. “All recordings are a filtered version of that live experience. Thank goodness we are able to hold on to even a piece of that magic.”
Mindful of the Vanguard’s legacy, Clayton winnowed down 12 sets to seven tracks that comprise recorded originals, new selections and enduring tunes. Happening spotlights his layered identity as a leader, co-navigating his own “Patience Patients,” “A Light,” “Rejuvenation Agenda” and “Envisionings,” as well as Duke Ellington’s “Take the Coltrane,” with equally intuitive, terminally receptive fellow artists. Trio takes of Bud Powell’s “Celia” and the standard “Body and Soul” cast a mood that lingers long after the record ends.
Clayton’s repertoire, in part, reveals his long-held reverence for venue matriarch, the late Lorraine Gordon – known to chide artists who failed to play any standards during their set. “She had that sharp New York energy,” says Clayton. “She’d sit in the back, and she would voice her opinions pretty strongly. If you came off of that set and didn’t play a standard, she was going to let you know about it.”
A Los Angeles native, Clayton came up inside the lineage with the encouragement of his father, legendary bass player John Clayton. As a child, he idolized his dad and would accompany him to rehearsals, soundchecks and live shows. Clayton remembers witnessing the camaraderie among his father and the other artists who’d perform together. “I’d see these grown men and women just laughing, telling jokes and giving each other hugs. It was a really loving environment,” says Clayton. “Those were my first steps into music. I feel really lucky to have had my dad as a guide.”
By adolescence, Clayton had spent long hours internalizing standards and studying his father’s record collection. He attended Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where he encountered like-minded artists and received opportunities to travel and perform – and meet future collaborators including Sanders and Gilmore.
After high school, Clayton studied at USC before moving to Harlem to continue studying under legendary pianist-composer Kenny Barron at Manhattan School of Music. He spent 10 years in New York, performing with such similar individualists as Kendrick Scott, Terri Lyne Carrington, Gretchen Parlato and Ambrose Akinmusire before moving back to LA. The four-time GRAMMY-nominated pianist is the latest in a long line of second generation LA natives who came up under a father’s tutelage. “LA is sort of having a moment—all these cats I grew up seeing in my early years, hanging and playing with at jam sessions,” say Clayton. “The degrees of separation have always been just one or two handshakes away. It’s inspiring and heartwarming to see that we’re all still doing the same thing we always were—pushing the music forward, spreading love around the world.”
Happening marks Clayton’s first release on Blue Note Records. “Gerald Clayton is one of the most accomplished, distinctive and innovative pianists performing today,” says Blue Note President Don Was. “He’s recorded and performed with an array of jazz legends ranging from Roy Hargrove to Charles Lloyd. His solo work is characterized by his imaginative curiosity and harmonic mastery. We are thrilled to welcome him to the Blue Note family.” Clayton has been a fan of the label for years, in part because of its tight-knit community and storied legacy. He’s equally excited to release his fifth album as a leader. “I think the live setting is the most honest testament to what it is we do all year round,” Clayton says. “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.”
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.”
