Nicholas Payton: Exploring Sound through Textures, Letters and Numbers
Nicholas Payton: Exploring Sound through Textures, Letters and Numbers At 44 years old and with a grammy to his name, trumpeter Nicholas Payton already has near legendary status in the jazz world. Payton is also notorious for publishing outspoken and sometimes controversial intellectual pieces, like “On Why Jazz isn’t Cool Anymore” . I’ll stick to discussing Payton’s music here and maybe go into his ideas about music and society another time. An examination of Payton’s life and work reveal a man who places a great deal of importance in the honest expression of one’s own ideas and beliefs, be them creative or intellectual. Payton’s individuality is evident even on his earliest albums, however Payton has released a string of more conceptual albums in the past few years which I personally find especially interesting. It is necessary to note at this point that Payton does far more than just play the trumpet. In addition to running his own label (Paytone Records), Payton is