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Gerald Clayton: Bells On Sand
by Chris May
It seems like an age since pianist Gerald Clayton's previous album, Happening: Live At The Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 2020), although it is actually only two years. But what traumatic years they were--and what an impact they have had on Clayton's new album. The Vanguard disc, recorded in spring 2019, was an often exuberant or otherwise intense affair, with saxophonists Logan Richardson and Walter Smith III, both of them capable of generating heat, featured on most of the ...
Continue ReadingGraham Dechter: Major Influence
by Pierre Giroux
The guitarist Graham Dechter offers his first new album in almost a decade. Major Influence was recorded prior to the pandemic with the dream rhythm section of Dechter's earlier recordings: pianist Tamir Hendelman, bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton. In early fall 2021, the band can now begin to contemplate returning to touring. While the unit's previous releases contained mostly titles from the American Songbook and jazz standards, this effort consists of compositions that were ...
Continue ReadingGraham Dechter: Major Influence
by Jack Bowers
If you're a jazz guitarist who plans to record a quartet CD, you obviously want the most able and supportive rhythm section you can possibly find to lend its weight. For Los Angeles-based Graham Dechter, assembling such a peerless trio to enhance Major Influence, his third album as leader and first in nearly a decade, posed no problem whatsoever: Dechter's bandmates in the world-class Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra would do quite nicely. Yes, there may be rhythm sections whose talents are ...
Continue ReadingGraham Dechter: Major Influence
by Dan Bilawsky
What do you get when you combine a million-dollar feel, sterling technique, clear-eared chording, warm and sophisticated single-note lines and impeccable taste? Graham Dechter, of course. As a longtime member of The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and first-call sideman for the West Coast elite, Dechter has earned his place on the scene. And with his first two albums—Right On Time (Capri, 2009) and Takin' It There (Capri, 2012)—he made an extremely convincing case out front. Not surprisingly, this third date merely ...
Continue ReadingJohn Clayton: Career Reflections
by Schaen Fox
John Clayton is as interesting to talk to as he is an artist of great talent and experience. The former has allowed him to interact with numerous major figures of his time as well as have long tenures performing with aggregations as diverse as Count Basie's band and the Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. The latter gives him interesting perspectives on topics such as drugs and building a career in jazz. His busy schedule made successfully speaking to him difficult, but what ...
Continue ReadingRock Swings
by Duncan Heining
A while ago, me and Mrs. O'Groove were at the Diamante Dance Academy, Chelmsford --I kid you not--for our regular lesson, when our teacher, Natasha Fellowes, put on this big band version of Van Halen's “Jump." Turned out it was off Paul Anka's Rock Swings album (2005). No particular reason but I've always had a soft spot for the number but this was a hoot. More than that, the arrangement takes what was a quick jive and turns it into ...
Continue ReadingThe Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra: The L.A. Treasures Project:Live at Alvas Showroom
by Jack Bowers
The “L.A. Treasures" heralded herein are singers Ernie Andrews (eighty-six years young when the album was recorded in September 2013) and Barbara Morrison (a relative novice at sixty-one). The idea to record sprang from rehearsals earlier that year by the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra in which Andrews and Morrison were invited to sit in. Afterward, co-leader John Clayton writes, it was decided that “we need to document these artists . . . these treasures!" What a splendid idea! An idea, in ...
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