Gerald Clayton Threesome

Six-time Grammy-nominated pianist and composer Gerald Clayton will perform with his trio in Blue Note on the Jazz Top series.

He was educated in Los Angeles and New York, among others at the USC Thornton School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. In 2006, he won second prize at the Thelonious Monk Piano Competition. He spent the following years touring, leading his own bands and performing alongside artists such as Roy Hargrove, Dianne Reeves, Bill Frisell, John Scofield and Charles Lloyd. These meetings became an important part of his musical biography.

As a composer, Clayton often draws on history, painting, and human experience. In the extensive multimedia project “Piedmont Blues” he looked at the blues tradition. In “White Cities,” commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, he answered with music a mural by Charles White and the questions it contained about race and society. He is also the author of the soundtrack to Sam Pollard's award-winning documentary “MLK/FBI”.

Associated with Blue Note Records, he served as music director for the 85th anniversary tour of the label. For the album “Ones & Twos” he invited Elena Pinderhughes, Joel Ross, Marquis Hill, Kendrick Scott and Kassa Overall. Inspirations from hip-hop and turntablism served him here to reflect on the coexistence of separate voices. This thought is also close to his trio play, in which each of the musicians can give a new direction to the common story.

Band composition: Gerald Clayton — piano Joe Sanders — bass Jeff Ballard — drums

The project is co-financed from the funds of the Wielkopolskie Voivodship Local Government.