Jay Clayton is an internationally acclaimed vocalist, composer, and educator, whose work boldly spans the terrain between jazz and new music. In 1963 she began her career performing the standards on the vibrant New York music scene. However, she quickly became a prominent part of the free jazz movement. Her work in these two worlds led to the development of a highly personal, wordless vocabulary later enhanced by her innovative use of electronics.

Jay has gained worldwide attention as both performer and teacher. She has appeared at major venues including Lincoln Center, Sweet Basil, Town Hall, the Kennedy Center, Jazz Alley, and the North Sea and Montmartre Festivals. She has taught at Universitat fur Musik in Austria, Bud Shank Jazz Workshop, and at City College and the New School in New York City. She has co-taught with Sheila Jordan at the Vermont Jazz Workshop, Jazz in July in Mass., Banff Center in Canada and was on the jazz faculty of Cornish College of the Arts for 20 years.

Her book, Sing Your Story: a Practical Guide for Learning and Teaching the Art of Jazz Singing, was published by Advance Music in 2001.

Jay has performed and recorded throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe with leading jazz and new music artists including Muhal Richard Abrams, Steve Reich, Julian Priester, Stanley Cowell, Kirk Nurock, Gary Bartz, George Cables, Jane Ira Bloom, Jerry Granelli as well as with the a cappela group Vocal Summit; Urszula Dudziak, Bobby McFerrin, Jeanne Lee, Norma Winstone. Her current projects, covering both standards and original music, integrate poetry and electronics into her music. Her projects reflect the diversity of her art and her live performances, which range from duo to sextet, are unique events that draw from all of these collaborations.

"Clayton is an important singer...one who proposed dramatic changes in vocal styles and roles...her musicianship is impeccable.”
- Francis Davis - Downbeat

“As far as vocal innovation goes, Jay Clayton is precariously on the cutting edge”
- Fred Bouchard - Jazz Times

“More than 20 years after her debut recording All Out, Clayton is still the most adventurous singer in jazz, a
specialist in wordless improvisation who’s also expert in distending and finding new meanings in the melodies and lyrics of classic popular songs”
- Francis Davis - The Village Voice, July 14, 2004

“Singer Jay Clayton is one of the special blessings of jazz. Like her close friend Sheila Jordan, she is an artist for whom the music is front and center. Clayton has worked and recorded with such contemporary music figures as Steve Reich as well as edgy jazz artists including Muhal Richard Abrams, Stanley Cowell and the provocative a cappella vocal ensemble Vocal Summit. But her excursions through the outer territory of free spontaneity in no way diminished her mastery of straight-ahead jazz singing. Her pliable voice, which allowed her to roam freely, with no register break, from velvety chest sounds to gloriously airy head tones, made each standard tune into an intimate experience. And her zephyr-buoyant sense of rhythm brought subtle, but urgent, propulsive swing to the middle-tempo songs. Clayton did not draw a capacity crowd, and her name recognition among the wider jazz audience is relatively insubstantial. That's a shame, since she is a true jazz original.”
- Don Heckman - LA Times (September 2006)


“