Buck Clayton

Wilbur Dorsey "Buck" Clayton (November 12, 1911 – December 8, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter who was a member of Count Basie's orchestra.

His principal influence was Louis Armstrong, first hearing the record "Confessin' That I Love You" as he passed by a shop window.

Clayton learned to play the piano from the age of six.

His father was an amateur musician associated with the family's local church, who was responsible for teaching his son the scales on a trumpet, which he did not take up until his teens.

From the age of 17, Clayton was taught the trumpet by Bob Russell, a member of George E. Lee's band.

In his early twenties he was based in California, and was briefly a member of Duke Ellington's Orchestra and worked with other leaders.

From 1934 or 1935 (depending on the sources), he was a leader of the "Harlem Gentlemen" in Shanghai.

Some of the bureaucratic social groups he was with included Chiang Kai-shek's wife Soong Mei-ling and her sister Ai-ling, who were regulars at the Canidrome.

Clayton played a number of songs that were composed by Li Jinhui, while adopting the Chinese music scale into the American scale.

Li learned a great deal from the American jazz influence brought over by Clayton.

A 1935 guidebook in Shanghai, listed Clayton and Teddy Weatherford as the main jazz attraction at the Canidrome.

He left Shanghai before the 1937 Second Sino-Japanese War.

Clayton is credited for helping to close the gap between traditional Chinese music and shidaiqu/mandopop.

Li is mostly remembered in China as a casualty of the Cultural Revolution.

Later that year he accepted an offer from bandleader Willie Bryant in New York, but while moving east he stopped in Kansas City, Missouri and was persuaded to stay by Count Basie, whose orchestra had a residency at the Reno Club.

Clayton replaced Hot Lips Page.

Beginning in 1937, the Count Basie orchestra was based in New York City, giving Clayton the opportunity to work as a freelance musician in studio sessions with Billie Holiday and Lester Young.

Clayton was also taught at this time by trumpeter Mutt Carey, who later emerged as a prominent west-coast revivalist in the 1940s.

He also met Louis Armstrong while Armstrong was performing at Sebastian's Cotton Club, who taught him how to glissando on his trumpet.

After high school, he moved to Los Angeles.

He later formed a band named 14 Gentlemen from Harlem, in which he was the leader of the 14-member orchestra.

From there, there are multiple sources claiming different ways in which Clayton ended up in Shanghai, China.

Some claimed that Clayton was picked by Teddy Weatherford for a job at the Canidrome ballroom in the French Concession in Shanghai.

Others claimed he escaped the US temporarily to avoid racism.

Clayton left Basie after being drafted in November 1943.

After his honorable discharge in 1946, he prepared arrangements for Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Harry James and became a member of Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic package, appearing in April in a concert with Young, Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker, and in October participated in JATPs first national tour of the United States.

He also recorded at this time for the H.R.S. label.

In 1947, he was back in New York, and had a residency at the Café Society, and the following year had a reunion with Jimmy Rushing, his fellow Basie alumnus, at the Savoy Ballroom.

From September 1949, Clayton was in Europe for nine months, leading his own band in France.

Clayton recorded intermittently over the next few years for the French Vogue label, under his own name, that of clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow and for one session, with pianist Earl Hines.

The English critic Stanley Dance coined the term "mainstream" in the 1950s, to describe the style of those swing era players who fell between the revivalist and modernist camps.

Clayton was precisely one of the players to whom this appellation most applied.

In 1953, he was again in Europe, touring with Mezzrow; in Italy, the group was joined by Frank Sinatra.

In December 1953, Clayton embarked on a series of jam session albums for Columbia, which had been the idea of John Hammond, though George Avakian was the principal producer.

The recording sessions for these albums lasted until 1956.

The tracks could last the length of an LP side, and it had been the new format that had given Hammond the idea, but sometimes this led to unfortunate anomalies.

The title track on the Jumpin' at the Woodside album was compiled from two takes recorded four months apart, each with a completely different rhythm section.

From this series also came Clayton's Jazz Spectacular album with Kai Winding, J. J. Johnson and vocals by Frankie Laine.

Clayton also recorded for Vanguard, with Hammond producing, under his own name and on dates led by Ruby Braff, Mel Powell and Sir Charles Thompson.

Clayton and Rushing worked together occasionally into the 1960s.