Gerald Clayton at Dazzle Jazz Club

A quarter of the age of Jazz, Gerald Clayton stakes his claim in the history and the present of this vital music with the following words, “Tradition and innovation can peacefully coexist.” In libraries and on drawing-boards around the country this statement might be true, but with Gerald behind the piano this coexistence is anything but peaceful.

His dynamic and award-winning sound has been praised in print by the Jazz Times and Los Angeles Times. The New York Times has saluted his “Oscar-Peterson like style” and “huge, authoritative presence” and Down Beat Magazine’s 2008 Readers’ Poll named him one of the top up-and-coming pianists to watch...

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A quarter of the age of Jazz, Gerald Clayton stakes his claim in the history and the present of this vital music with the following words, “Tradition and innovation can peacefully coexist.” In libraries and on drawing-boards around the country this statement might be true, but with Gerald behind the piano this coexistence is anything but peaceful.

His dynamic and award-winning sound has been praised in print by the Jazz Times and Los Angeles Times. The New York Times has saluted his “Oscar-Peterson like style” and “huge, authoritative presence” and Down Beat Magazine’s 2008 Readers’ Poll named him one of the top up-and-coming pianists to watch. As a composer, his work has been commissioned by the Jazz Gallery in New York City and performed overseas by the BBC Orchestra. He has been honored with a Level 1 award by the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (NFAA), the title “Presidential Scholar in the Arts,” and second place in the Thelonious Monk Institute Jazz Piano Competition. Dodging early pressures to emerge as a prodigy, Gerald instead honed his talents and his resolve to ensure that this next generation is never lacking for intricate, swinging pieces and performances that are steeped in tradition while always facing the future.

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