Ryan Music Inc.

It was in Spring 2000 – thanks to his old friend and mine, Len Skeat - that I thought I’d met a madman! Totally likeable, bubbling with a brimming enthusiasm for life and a smile which could charm his beloved birds down from their trees, but a madman nevertheless. His name was – and is – Peter Clayton; his company Robinwood Productions. And – so he informed Len and I - he was preparing to fill the Royal Albert Hall (London’s biggest concert venue) with an evening of British jazz. Classy British jazz for sure, but the Albert Hall holds getting on for five thousand people and that’s a lot. “I don’t think you’ll do it!” I said doubtfully. “Oh, yes I will!” he smiled back. And sure enough (or near as no matter) he did! On 23 September 2000, with British jazz, and nothing but, in a concert titled ‘From Ragtime to Swing!’. Simply because he believed in it and put his back into the project! Little short of a miracle!
Since then I’ve discovered that my friend Peter Clayton has a habit of making miracles happen, and dreams come true too. At heart a born impresario, with a hugely successful career in building to his credit, he has acquired the habit, in recent years, of first embracing a musical cause that’s dear to him; then putting every ounce of his (considerable!) energy into seeing it through to a triumphant conclusion. That’s how he filled the Albert Hall of course! And how – no doubt – his completed musical about Louis Armstrong, authored by Trevor Preston, will one day hit the West End stage (and probably Broadway too!). And how protegés of his such as the immensely gifted American singer Jane Powell (whose first three albums he has produced) will one day be household names in a jazz world that’s short of them.
I’ve worked ever more closely with Peter since he signed both George Melly and my own band , the Half-Dozen, to his Robinwood label, which now has no less than nine albums to its credit. And he’s a remarkable man. Blessed with the kind of insatiable enthusiasm for music which would put most professional performers to shame, he also – somehow – possesses an innate musician’s ear for what’s good and not so good, and how to put it right where necessary. He understands musicians’ psychology and how to get the best out of even the most weathered performers in recording situations. He’s definitely an instinctive record-producer too, whose ear for the right balance, the correct emphasis, the proper sound is regularly infallible. And although, to my knowledge, he can’t read a note of music he seems to know not only how a performance should – but, more remarkably, how it might – sound. It was Peter who (on George Melly’s recent Robinwood album ‘Singing and Swinging the Blues’) conceived the stylistic frame for the remarkable jazz-fusion version of ‘Frankie and Johnny’ which, for me was one of the album’s principal highlights. And regularly on this collection too, he was – in Johnny Mercer’s words – ‘way ahead of the game’. My game, anyhow. “What do you think about strings on ‘I should care’ and ‘I’ll see you in my dreams?” he asked one day, while I was taking care of the arrangements for the sessions. “Hmm” I said ‘...not sure”. But about a week later I looked at the scores again, and suddenly realized exactly what he was talking about and where the strings ought to go. “I thought so perhaps...” he said gently. Peter – unlike many of his less likeable showbiz colleagues – doesn’t rub things in! But he knows, you know!
He also bases his productions – like his life – on two commodities rarer than they should be in the harum-scarum world of jazz; quality and honesty. As a result, most people who meet Peter quickly become his friend. Deeply committed to all that’s best in his musical world, he’s also a compassionate and sensitive human being who warms the lives of those he cares for. He’s also a marvellous inventor by the way. And I can’t help it if one of his inventions occasionally flashes the sign ‘All wardens are b******s!’ at otherwise inoffensive parking controllers!  Thank you Peter for your love of jazz.  You can be sure it’s returned. 

 Digby Fairweather 2003