Gabriel Alegria And Gerald Clayton On JazzSet

Two unique emerging artists step out at the Litchfield Jazz Festival, the climax of a four-week jazz camp in Kent, Conn. Each is a joy and the transition is sweet. Pianist Gerald Clayton is so deft, he can turn a piece of music inside-out without making a single cut. His trio offers two originals — one by his drummer — with "Con Alma," a Dizzy Gillespie classic, in the middle. They rework it, of course.

The son of bassist John Clayton, Gerald Clayton spent his early years learning Oscar Peterson records, and at 26, he's both solidly grounded and highly individual. He'll find a morsel in a tune and turn it over and over, always keeping a flow. Then, on a dime, he can shift to an exhilarating, satisfying shout chorus. His latest album is Bond: The Paris Sessions, just out from EmArcy.

Both bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Justin Brown studied at the Brubeck Institute in California, and among the three, there are at least four more alma maters — USC, the Monk Institute and the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools of Music.

Trumpeter Gabriel Alegría is the third generation of a family of distinguished writers in Lima. His grandfather Ciro was a novelist and his father Alfonso was a playwright. When he was younger, Alegría became a serious student of the black music of coastal Peru, earned his doctorate in Jazz Studies at USC and now teaches at New York University. Alegría pioneers a fresh blend of Afro-Peruvian music and jazz, especially Miles Davis.

Saxophonist Laura Andrea Leguía, guitarist Yuri Juárez and percussionist Freddy "Huevito" Lobatón come from Peru, as well. Huevito sits on a cajón (box drum), plays the jawbone of an ass (quijada) and is a zapateo shoe-dancer extraordinaire (as shown at Litchfield in the photo by Fran Kaufman). Bassist John Benitez, born in Puerto Rico, is busy in New York, and drummer Shirazette Tinnin (North Carolina, Northern Illinois University) is coming on the scene fast. Her nickname is "She Beats."

The Afro-Peruvian Sextet has a following — it plays regularly in New York at the Tutuma Social Club, a tiny restaurant. The band and fans from Tutuma rode together on a bus to Litchfield. In early 2011, Alegría will lead a musical trip to Peru. Maybe they'll visit the fishing town for which their album is named, Pucusana.

Credits

Surround Sound mix by Duke Markos. Thanks to Vita Muir West and Lindsey Turner of the Litchfield Jazz Festival.