By
Conte Forum’s Shea Room was swinging last week as jazz giant John Clayton, a Grammy-award winning bassist, composer and conductor who is dedicated to music education, visited campus to work with members of BC bOp!, the University’s instrumental and vocal jazz ensemble.
“Music,” Clayton told the group, “is in the person, not in the instrument.” He showed an easy rapport with the students, listening to them perform pieces from their repertoire, providing ideas and instruction, and sharing his life stories — including his experiences playing with the legendary William “Count” Basie’s orchestra.
Clayton encouraged the musicians to produce “big sound, not loud sound,” frequently stopping them in mid-number to offer compliments and suggestions: “This is so awesome, you guys are so good. So what [elements] can we add to this?”
Clayton earned a 2008 Grammy in the Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists category for Queen Latifah’s song “I'm Gonna Live Till I Die,” and he has worked with Diana Krall, DeeDee Bridgewater (including her Grammy-winning CD "Dear Ella"), Natalie Cole, Milt Jackson, Nancy Wilson, Quincy Jones, George Benson, Dr. John, Gladys Knight, Regina Carter and others. He co-leads the Grammy-nominated Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and the Clayton Brothers Quintet, both nominated for Grammy awards.
His Oct. 26 appearance at Conte was spurred by BC bOp!’s appearance in the annual Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival of which he is artistic director, and where BC bOp! has won numerous awards and recognition. BC was one of only 10 schools in the country Clayton invited to participate in workshops he is offering prior to the 2012 festival in February.
“This is very exciting for us,” said Director of BC Bands Sebastian Bonaiuto, who directs BC bOp!. “Having an accomplished and acclaimed jazz artist like John Clayton visit the Boston College campus is unprecedented and we are honored.”
Clayton chose to work with BC bOp! not only for the awards and recognition it has earned at the festival, said Bonaiuto, but for its distinctiveness as an ensemble from a liberal arts institution instead of a music school, and its incorporation of jazz vocals into an ensemble structure.
“The BC bOp! student musicians have customarily been committed, hard working members who have taken musical performance seriously. To have an additional opportunity to learn about this uniquely American musical art form that is jazz from John Clayton will enhance and amplify the good work that our students already do,” Bonaiuto said.
Jennifer Yoo ’12, a soprano vocalist and BC bOp! executive board coordinator, said, “Clayton’s philosophy about music as a form of expression was extremely helpful. He defined music as a way of expressing something in the core of our beings, in our hearts. His holistic philosophy of music is definitely something I will keep in mind in the future.”
Yoo said a comment of Clayton’s “connected with me as a musician on such a profound level: ‘Music is about honesty and clarity...We rehearse dynamics, articulations, intonation and rhythms to make ourselves more clear to the audience. Otherwise, they have to pick through all our struggles in order to get to the parts we want to show — our souls.’”
* * *
Tomorrow night, BC bOp! presents “Jazz in the Irish Room,” at 8 p.m. in Gasson 100. The ensemble will perform traditional and contemporary jazz literature from its repertoire of over 50 selections, which includes music from the 1940s to the present. Admission is free and open to the public. Contact the Boston College Bands office at bands@bc.edu or call ext.2-3018 for more information.