Gerald Clayton Trio with Joe Sanders & Justin Brown

Gerald Clayton (piano), Joe Sanders (bass), Justin Brown (drums)

Over the past two decades, pianist, composer, and seven-time Grammy nominee Gerald Clayton has built a career defined by versatility and depth. As a bandleader, he’s created music that ranges from the intimate reflections of Bells on Sand to the electrifying immediacy of Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard. As a collaborator with artists like Roy Hargrove, Charles Lloyd, John Scofield, Terri Lyne Carrington, Bill Frisell and Diana Krall, he’s earned a reputation for musicianship that is at once grounded and adventurous — profoundly attentive, open, and unafraid to take risks onstage.

His latest Blue Note release, Ones & Twos, captures a balance of curiosity and groove. Using a reimagined jazz-quintet setup, Clayton nods to the inventiveness of hip-hop while maintaining the organic spontaneity of live performance. The album meditates on coexistence — on how two independent voices can occupy the same…