Jeff Clayton
Jeff Clayton was an American jazz alto saxophonist and flautist. He grew up in Los Angeles. His mother was a church pianist and organist and encouraged her children to pursue music. Growing up on this gospel diet, as well as Motown and other soul and R&B records of the time, Clayton began playing saxophone at an early age but didn’t become a jazz fan until he joined his high-school jazz band and found his ideas about music reoriented.
Enrolling at California State University – Northridge in 1973, Clayton studied oboe and English horn; one semester short of graduation, he was invited to join Stevie Wonder’s band. Clayton would remain a recording and touring member of the band for three years. After leaving Wonder, Clayton returned to Los Angeles and became a session musician, working with Gladys Knight, Michael Jackson, and Madonna (with whom he was nominated for a Grammy), among others. He also toured with Ray Charles and B.B. King, and sustained a lengthy association with Frank Sinatra, both on the road and in the studio.
In 1977, Jeff and John Clayton established their own quartet, recording two albums together in 1978 and 1980. (They also played together in the Count Basie Orchestra, both under Basie and, in the days after Basie’s death, Thad Jones.) That quartet would later expand to a quintet. In 1985, the brothers, together with Hamilton, the quartet’s drummer, founded the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. Its three-way leadership was a unique machinery: Hamilton was the floor leader; John Clayton wrote the arrangements; and Jeff was the featured soloist. It gave the band a distinctive, virtuoso vision that has continued ever since.
Clayton remained a busy freelancer, and in 1998 became an educator when he took on an adjunct professorship at UCLA. This was followed by his stints at USC and CSU Long Beach and Los Angeles, which ended in 2007. Afterward he dedicated himself to performing in his own quartet, with the CHJO, and with his brother in their quintet until his illness prevented him from traveling.