Buck Clayton

Buck Clayton (born Wilbur Dorsey Clayton, November 12, 1911, in Parsons, Kansas; died December 8, 1991, in New York) was an American jazz trumpeter, arranger and bandleader. He grew up in Los Angeles, studied piano and trombone as a boy before settling on trumpet, and took Louis Armstrong as his principal model, later recalling that he decided to play the instrument after hearing “Confessin’ That I Love You” from a shop window.

In the early 1930s he worked in Los Angeles club and dance bands, and in 1934 travelled to Shanghai with Teddy Weatherford’s band, playing in concession-hall ballrooms for almost two years. On his way home in 1936 he passed through Kansas City and was kept on by Count Basie; for the next seven years he was a trumpet mainstay of the Basie band, recording with Harry Edison, Lester Young and Herschel Evans the riff-driven swing that became the orchestra’s classic sound.

After leaving Basie in 1943 he worked in New York as an arranger and freelance player, appearing on recordings by Billie Holiday and Jimmy Rushing; in the 1950s he made a series of jam-session albums for Columbia, among them The Huckle-Buck, All The Cats Join In and Songs for Swingers. In the 1960s he toured Europe repeatedly with his own All-Stars, leaving live recordings from Copenhagen, London and Paris and introducing his name to a new generation of European players.

Dental surgery damaged his lip in 1969 and he played less afterwards, turning to arranging, teaching and writing; his autobiography, Buck Clayton’s Jazz World, appeared in 1986. In 1991 he received the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters award.

This catalogue adds All The Cats Join In (A Buck Clayton Jam Session) (1956, Columbia CL 882) and Buck & Buddy (1961, Prestige Swingville SVLP 2017). The first is one of Columbia’s jam-session collections, five long performances including “All The Cats Join In”, “Blue Lou” and “Lean Baby”, with sleeve notes by George Avakian. The second pairs him with tenor saxophonist Buddy Tate over a rhythm section of Sir Charles Thompson on piano, Gene Ramey on bass and Mousey Alexander on drums, recorded by Rudy Van Gelder; its six pieces, from “High Life” to “Kansas City Nights”, leave ample room for improvisation.

Cover photograph: William P. Gottlieb, taken between 1938 and 1948, public domain. Body photograph: William P. Gottlieb, taken in June 1947 at Cafe Society (Downtown), New York, public domain. Both from Wikimedia Commons (Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress).