Jay Clayton, a singer whose six-decade career encompassed free improvisation, lyrical songs and poetry, and the prophetic use of electronics, died December 31 at her home in New Paltz, New York. He was 82 years old.
His daughter, Dejha Colantuono, said the cause was small cell lung cancer.
Clayton established herself as an innovator in the 1970s and 1980s, training with instrumentalists in cutting-edge settings and using electronics to alter and expand her vocal palette long before the practice became common. She frequently worked with other singers (she formed an especially close bond with Sheila Jordan, an early mentor of hers) and sang in acrobatic vocal groups with peers such as Jeanne Lee, Ursula Dudziak, Norma Winstone and Bobby McFerrin.
“He works in the familiar avant-garde terrain of spontaneous, wordless improvisations in duos and groups,” critic Jon Garelick wrote of his work in The Boston Phoenix in 1990. “But Clayton is also a warm and gentle interpreter of lyrical standards. , and this lyricism permeates all of his work.”
He performed for a decade with composer Steve Reich, participating in the development and recording of groundbreaking pieces such as “Drumming,” “Music for 18 Musicians” and “Tehillim.” She also worked closely with dancers and choreographers early in her career, and had a long-standing collaboration with tap dancer Brenda Bufalino.
A prominent and influential professor, Clayton held positions at the City College of New York, the Peabody Institute, and Princeton University. She developed a vocal program for the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada, where she taught with Ms. Jordan. The two also collaborated on training programs in Massachusetts and Vermont and organized a celebrated retreat for singers at Willow Lane Farm in Berne, New York, near Albany.
Prominent among Clayton's students are composer Karen Goldfeder and protean vocal improviser Theo Bleckmann. But through his widespread pedagogy (including a book, “Sing Your Story: A Practical Guide for Learning and Teaching the Art of Jazz Singing,” published in 2001), his progeny are legion.
She was born Judith Theresa Colantone on October 28, 1941 in Youngstown, Ohio. Her father, William Colantone, was a carpenter and construction worker; her mother, Josephine (Armeni) Colantone, had sung professionally during the big band era.
Ms. Clayton began playing the accordion and then took several years of piano lessons. After high school, he attended a summer program at the St. Louis Institute of Music and then enrolled at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he received a bachelor's degree in music education in 1963. Since there were no jazz courses available , studied classical music. her repertoire while she quietly honed her improvisational skills on weekend dates with a local trombonist.
After moving to New York City in 1963, Clayton fell in love with the downtown jazz scene and formed an early partnership with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. Through him she met drummer Frank Clayton, with whom she began a relationship in 1965. In 1967, the couple began a concert series, “Jazz at the Loft,” at his home on Lispenard Street, in the neighborhood later called TriBeCa. featuring performances by saxophonist Sam Rivers, pianist Joanne Brackeen and others. They married in 1968.
Not long afterward, the singer Joan La Barbara, who was his student, introduced Clayton to Mr. Reich. What he was looking for, he said in a telephone interview, was a “modern equivalent” of Ella Fitzgerald: someone who could interpret her music with spontaneity and precision.
Mrs. Clayton fit the bill. “His tone of hers was spot on and her rhythm was a lift to the spirit,” Reich said. “She understood what needed to be done and she did it perfectly.”
Thriving among her fellow innovators and iconoclasts, Ms. Clayton led educational workshops with Jeanne Lee and performed with pianist Muhal Richard Abrams at the Public Theater in 1979. That same year, she consulted on the first Women in Jazz festival, produced by Cobi Narita. (who died in November).
In 1981, Clayton released his first album, “All-Out,” a wide-ranging statement with an ensemble that included Clayton, pianist Larry Karush, saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, vocalist Shelley Hirsch and others. On several tracks, Clayton sang soaring lines along with Bloom, a newcomer from New Haven, Connecticut, whom Clayton had taken under her wing.
“From the moment she and I met, we had this linear synchronicity,” Bloom said in an interview. “There's something about the combination of her sound and mine: we played lines together and it was like this other instrument.” They collaborated for decades.
In 1982, Mrs. Clayton, her husband and two children moved to Seattle, where she taught at the Cornish School, now Cornish College of the Arts. When she and Clayton divorced in 1984, she remained in Seattle, developing a new circle of collaborators that included drummer Jerry Granelli, trombonist Julian Priester, bassist and saxophonist Briggan Krauss.
He recorded works by experimental composer John Cage in the late 1980s and occasionally returned to Mr. Reich's music. His jazz recordings from those years include “Beautiful Love,” a 1995 album dedicated to early popular standards with pianist Fred Hersch.
“I always think that doing standard material lets you know where someone is coming from,” Hersch said in an interview, comparing the practice to a painter depicting a still life or a nude. “In Jay's case, a lot of it is hauntingly beautiful and quite fierce in terms of improvisation.”
Ms. Clayton returned to New York in 2002, reestablishing a local presence both alone and in collaboration with Ms. Jordan. She made a series of recordings for the Sunnyside label, ranging from a lyrical tribute to composer Harry Warren to an adventurous electronic fantasy involving poetry by Emily Dickinson, performed with composer and pianist Kirk Nurock.
He was diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer in December 2022. His latest recording, “Voices in Flight,” a collaboration with singer Judy Niemack, was released in June.
In addition to her daughter, Ms. Clayton is survived by her brother, William Colantone Jr.; her son, Dov Clayton; and two grandchildren.
To the end, Mrs. Clayton remained dedicated to her students. “She was always exactly herself, personally and musically,” Goldfeder wrote in a Facebook post; “It's one of the many ways she was a great teacher.”
