Best Jazz Vocal Album — stream the album
Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance — “The Longest Time”
For Your Consideration
69th Annual Grammy Awards
Two entries from the Two-O Duo recording, released by ArtistShare on May 8, 2026.
Best Jazz Vocal Album
Two-O Duo
John Clayton featuring René Marie & Gerald Clayton
Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
The Longest Time
John Clayton, René Marie
Listen
Two-O Duo
For your consideration
Best Jazz Vocal Album — Two-O Duo
Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance — The Longest Time
The Project
Two-O Duo
John Clayton · René Marie · Gerald Clayton
When I conceived the Two-O-Duo project, I wanted to create something that captured the true spirit of jazz collaboration—not just musicians playing together, but artists choosing and creating music specifically for each other. My son Gerald, who has become one of the great pianists of his generation with his own distinctive voice, brings a harmonic curiosity and artistic exploration that continually amazes me. René Marie, the fearless vocalist and composer who started her professional career at 42, represents everything I admire about artists who serve the music first with her truth-telling original songs. Each of us selected pieces and created interpretations with the others specifically in mind.
The beautiful thing about this project is how it represents jazz as it should be: deeply personal, generous, and exploratory. We're three artists at different stages of our careers—Gerald is establishing himself as a major voice in contemporary jazz, and René brings her unique blend of jazz, folk, and R&B with an uncompromising commitment to honest songwriting. But when we come together, it's not about our individual achievements—it's about creating something that could only exist through this specific collaboration. The fact that we also recorded a track with all three of us together felt like the natural culmination of this musical conversation.
This is music that serves the art form first, created by people who understand that the spirit of jazz is always freedom, always looking ahead while honoring the profound traditions that came before us. The Two-O-Duo project (get it?) is our invitation for listeners to experience the intimacy and generosity that happens when musicians truly listen to each other and create something beautiful together.
I hope you will join us.
~ John Clayton
John Clayton
Few musicians have shaped as much music from as many chairs as John Clayton: Grammy-winning bassist, composer, arranger, conductor and educator; alumnus of the Count Basie Orchestra and principal bassist of the Amsterdam Philharmonic; co-founder of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra; and the arranger behind Whitney Houston’s Super Bowl anthem and the bassist behind Diana Krall for most of her career.
John is a Grammy Award winner, honored for his arrangement of “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die” for Queen Latifah, with nine further Grammy nominations, among them a 2025 nomination for the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra’s And So It Goes (Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, 67th Annual Grammy Awards).
Millions have heard his writing without knowing his name: he arranged “The Star-Spangled Banner” that Whitney Houston sang at Super Bowl XXV in 1991, one of the most celebrated renditions of the anthem ever recorded.
His long association with Diana Krall includes writing the big band arrangements for her album Christmas Songs and conducting the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra on it, alongside numerous sessions with her as arranger and bassist. He played bass on Paul McCartney’s Kisses on the Bottom, and artists such as Regina Carter, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Gladys Knight and Charles Aznavour vie for a spot on his crowded calendar.
A student of Ray Brown from the age of 16, Clayton graduated from Indiana University’s School of Music in 1975, toured with the Monty Alexander Trio and the Count Basie Orchestra, and served as principal bassist of the Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra before returning to Los Angeles. In 1986 he co-founded the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra with drummer Jeff Hamilton and his brother, saxophonist Jeff Clayton, and he co-leads the Clayton Brothers Quintet. He taught for more than two decades at the USC Thornton School of Music and has served as artistic director of the Vail Jazz Workshop and the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival.
- Grammy Award winner · nine further nominations
- Arranger of Whitney Houston’s Super Bowl XXV “Star-Spangled Banner”
- Arranger, conductor and bassist for Diana Krall, including Christmas Songs
- Co-founder of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra; co-leader of the Clayton Brothers
John Clayton featuring René Marie & Gerald Clayton
Vocals
René Marie
The fearless vocalist and composer who started her professional career at 42. In John Clayton's words, she "represents everything I admire about artists who serve the music first with her truth-telling original songs," bringing "her unique blend of jazz, folk, and R&B with an uncompromising commitment to honest songwriting."
Piano
Gerald Clayton
John Clayton's son, "who has become one of the great pianists of his generation with his own distinctive voice," bringing "a harmonic curiosity and artistic exploration that continually amazes me." Gerald is establishing himself as a major voice in contemporary jazz.
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