[Dixielandjazz] Peter Clayton

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I see the recommendation of a book by Peter Clayton on sale via ABE books -- and 
presumably also Amazon and alibris  (add the suffix  .com  for USA  or    
.co.uk  for Britain.  


Peter Clayton certainly knew his stuff -- I learned a great deal from his 
numerous radio broadcasts and he was devoted to the music with special personal 
enthusiasms ranging to Wardell Gray and spontaneous expressions of the same when 
for instance on Jazz Record Requests a listener's suggestion of the Harlem 
Hamfats -- with the amazing undersprung rhythm section of John Lindsay's bass 
and the mandolin and guitar of Charlie and Joe McCoy (whose Weed Smoker's Dream 
became Why Don't You Do Right?) -- introduced Peter belatedly to the utterly 
delightful piano playing of Horace Malcolm (somewhat Mortonesque and confined on 
record to that band and quite a number of blues accompaniments).  

Peter compered Jazz Record Requests until I gather he lost the use of his legs 
following thr return of the cancer in whose first nasty course of treatment he 
was encouraged by musician-fans like the soprano player Eggy Ley (no joke as a 
player!) and others he expressed his gratitude to on air. After his retirement 
his successor Charles Fox succumbed to a sudden coronary, and Peter came back, I 
think recording at home from a wheelchair, and his eulogy on Charles Fox was one 
of the most moving things I've heard in any jazz connection.  Peter died not 
long after,  having delivered several more of the weekly broadcasts in his usual 
informed way. He wasn't much past sixty and no doubt other listmates had the 
privilege of knowing him well.