Buck Clayton’s Jazz World

Spanning nearly seventy years, Buck Clayton’s autobiography offers fascinating insights into not only the life of one of the most significant trumpeters and bandleaders in jazz, but also American social history in general.

This engaging volume depicts Clayton’s childhood in Parson, Kansas, where he learned how to play the trumpet and first came into contact with church and gospel music. It then details his move to the West Coast in the 1930s when he began to play jazz professionally. Clayton recounts the many important events that followed, including a Hollywood-style wedding, his trip to Shanghai in 1934 with his band, his involvement with the Count Basie Orchestra in New York, his enlistment in the U.S. Army in the 1940s, his work as a soloist and leader in both the U.S. and Europe, and his later career as an arranger and composer, as well as his days spent lecturing in jazz studies at Hunter College, City University of New York. Chronicling his encounters with many of the most influential jazz figures, such as Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Jimmy Rushing, Clayton presents a fascinating record of jazz history, both in the United States and abroad.