Collaborating over the years with such distinctive artists as Diana Krall, Roy Hargrove, Dianne Reeves, Terence Blanchard, John Scofield, Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Bernstein, Ambrose Akinmusire, Gretchen Parlato, Ben Wendel, the Clayton Brothers Quintet and legendary band leader Charles Lloyd, Clayton currently serves as Director of Next Generation Jazz Orchestra following service as Musical Director for Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour.

Under the instruction of Billy Childs, Clayton earned a Bachelor of Arts in Piano Performance at USC’s Thornton School of Music following a year of intensive study with Kenny Barron at The Manhattan School of Music. Clayton’s creative spirit honors the legacy of his father, bassist- composer John Clayton. In 2016, he received a Duke University commission to render the Piedmont Blues experience in early 20th Century Durham; Piedmont Blues features a mixed media performance of critical acclaim. In 2019, he received a commission from LACMA to compose a musical pendant for artist Charles White’s “5 Great American Negroes” mural; Clayton titled the project White Cities: A Musical Tribute to Charles White. In January 2020, he began work on the critically-acclaimed score for Sam Pollard’s award-winning documentary MLK/FBI. The emotional resonance of Clayton’s score imbues the film with subtle, lingering moments of struggle and humanity, and helps capture a complex arc of an enduring subject.

The album also introduced his remarkable quartet with Micah Thomas on piano, Daryl Johns on bass, and Kweku Sumbry on drums, a tight-knit unit that Wilkins features once again on his stunning sophomore album The 7th Hand.

The 7th Hand explores relationships between presence and nothingness across an hour-long suite comprised of seven movements. “I wanted to write a preparatory piece for my quartet to become vessels by the end of the piece, fully,” says the Brooklyn-based, Philadelphia-raised artist who Pitchfork said “composes ocean-deep jazz epics.”

The Parable of the Poet, Ross’ third release for Blue Note Records, explores feelings self- awareness — confidence, doubt, regret and forgiveness — through storytellings and retellings. Using collaborative improvising, collective melody and instrumental features, the intuitive band leader spotlights unique attributes of fellow artists Immanuel Wilkins, Maria Grand, Marquis Hill, Kalia Vandever, Sean Mason, Rick Rosato, Craig Weinrib and returning special guest Gabrielle Garo.

While still attending HSPVA, Scott won several DownBeat magazine student awards, as well as the Clifford Brown/Stan Getz Award from the International Association of Jazz Educators. He was later awarded a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music, where he majored in music education.

Scott has toured with Herbie Hancock, Charles Lloyd, The Crusaders, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Kurt Elling, and Terence Blanchard, also appearing on several of the trumpeter’s Blue Note albums including Flow (2005), A Tale Of God’s Will (2007), and Magnetic (2013). Scott’s first two releases on Blue Note as a leader presented his band Kendrick Scott Oracle: We Are The Drum (2015) and A Wall Becomes A Bridge (2019). Scott was also a member of the Blue Note All-Stars, a supergroup formed for the label’s 75th Anniversary featuring Ambrose Akinmusire, Robert Glasper, Derrick Hodge, Lionel Loueke and Marcus Strickland who released the album Our Point Of View in 2017. Scott’s 2023 Blue Note album Corridors finds him paring down to a trio with saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers.

He graduated high school from the Interlochen Arts Academy, and then went on to study at the Juilliard School. He’s travelled the world playing in the bands of Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Dave Binney, Gerald Clayton, Ben Wendel, Aaron Parks, Vijay Iyer, Dhafer Youssef, Antonio Sanchez, Mark Turner, Steve Lehman, Ben Monder, and Lage Lund, among many others). He has been a frequent guest lecturer at the Banff Center, and is an adjunct faculty member at the New School University.