Buck Clayton; Trumpeter Acclaimed as Jazz Artist

Buck Clayton, a highly acclaimed jazz trumpeter who accompanied singer Billie Holiday and soloed for Count Basie’s band, has died in New York. He was 80.

Clayton died Sunday, apparently of heart failure, his wife, Patricia, said Wednesday.

Although he had not played in a dozen years, Clayton recently organized and led a band, using his own compositions and arrangements.

Patricia Clayton said her husband had led the group on a tour of Europe in July, covering six countries in 29 days. She said he became ill after returning from the trip.

Clayton described his life work in a 1986 autobiography, “Buck Clayton’s Jazz World.”

Born Wilbur Dorsey Clayton in Parsons, Kan., Clayton moved to California when he was 21. He organized a band that played for taxi dances in Los Angeles. Clayton took a spinoff group to Shanghai in 1934.

Clayton was asked to join Basie during a visit to Kansas City, Mo., in 1936, and replaced Hot Lips Page. He stayed with the band until 1943, when he went into the Army for three years. He won the Esquire Gold Award in 1945 as the best musician in the armed forces.

Last January, the National Endowment for the Arts named Clayton to its unofficial jazz hall of fame. He and three others won a $20,000 fellowship as the arts endowment’s 1991 American Jazz Masters.

Clayton performed in two films, “The Benny Goodman Story” and “Jazz on a Summer’s Day.”

He had played with Benny Goodman in 1957 at New York’s Waldorf Astoria, but was not a part of Goodman’s original band.

Clayton remained active in various groups, touring Europe and Africa.

Los Angeles Times jazz critic Leonard Feather evaluated Clayton in his Encyclopedia of Jazz: “Buck Clayton’s unique vibrato, well-modulated open sound and highly individual use of the cup mute were some of the vitally distinctive sounds of the great Basie band in the late 1930s, and during the same period were heard in hundreds of recordings under the names of Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday, the Kansas City 5, 6 and 7.”

In addition to his wife, Clayton is survived by his daughter, Candice Bryson of Union City, Calif.; a sister, Jean Cherry of Kansas City, and five grandchildren.

Patricia Clayton said memorial services are being planned in Manhattan.