Jay Clayton

Bio:

Jay Clayton was an American avant-garde jazz vocalist, composer, and educator whose work spans the terrain between jazz and new music. Emerging in the 1960s performing standards in New York clubs, Clayton soon became a prominent member of the free jazz movement. She is recognized for her vocal improvisations built on a wordless vocabulary and her signature style of spontaneous composition—characterized by syllabic vocals, melodic repetition, and impromptu riffs of poetry and spoken word—which she later expanded through the use of electronic effects in live performance.