Jay Cameron is an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 reed player.

Cameron began as an alto saxophonist, but later recorded with bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, and B-flat clarinets. His career began in the early 1940s in Hollywood with Ike Carpenter's band, with whom he played until 1947. He moved to Europe near the end of the decade and played with Rex Stewart

Rex Stewart

Rex Stewart was an American jazz cornetist best known for his work with the Duke Ellington orchestra....

, Bill Coleman

Bill Coleman

William Johnson Coleman was a jazz trumpeter from the swing era.He had his musical debut in 1927. Coleman's first recordings were with the Luis Russell orchestra, but all solos on record went to the rising star Henry "Red" Allen. This led to Bill Coleman's departure from the band. By 1935 he...

, Roy Haynes

Roy Haynes

Roy Owen Haynes is an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Haynes is among the most recorded drummers in jazz, and in a career lasting more than 60 years has played in a wide range of styles ranging from swing and bebop to jazz fusion and avant-garde jazz...

 and Henri Renaud

Henri Renaud

Henri Renaud was a French jazz pianist and record company executive.His styles reflected the decades when he was musically active: he played in the Swing, Bebop and Cool styles. He developed renown internationally when he served as an ensemble-organizing point-man for visiting jazz performers...

 in France and Italy; in the early 1950s Cameron gigged around Belgium, Germany, and Scandinavia. In 1955 he played steadily in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 with a band that included Bobby Jaspar

Bobby Jaspar

Bobby Jaspar was a cool jazz and hard bop saxophonist, flautist and composer born in Liège, Belgium. He was married to the jazz singer Blossom Dearie....

, Barney Wilen

Barney Wilen

Barney Wilen was a French tenor and soprano saxophonist and jazz composer.Wilen was born in Nice; his father was an American dentist turned inventor, and his mother was French. He began performing in clubs in Nice after being encouraged by Blaise Cendrars who was a friend of his mother...

 and Jean-Louis Chautemps. He returned to the United States in 1956, playing in the bands of Woody Herman

Woody Herman

Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...

 (1956) and Slide Hampton

Slide Hampton

Locksley Wellington "Slide" Hampton is an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.He was a 1998 Grammy Award winner for "Best Jazz Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist", as arranger for "Cotton Tail" performed by Dee Dee Bridgewater...

 (1960). Other collaborations include time with Chet Baker

Chet Baker

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...

, Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

, Maynard Ferguson

Maynard Ferguson

Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian jazz musician and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957...

 (1957-58), Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard

Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...

 (1958), Candido Camero

Candido Camero

Candido de Guerra Camero, also known simply as Candido is a Cuban percussionist who backed many Afro-Cuban jazz and straightforward jazz acts since the 1950s...

, Bill Barron

Bill Barron (musician)

Bill Barron was an American jazz tenor and soprano tenor saxophonist.-Biography:...

, André Hodeir

André Hodeir

André Hodeir was a French violinist, composer, arranger and musicologist.-Biography:André Hodeir was born in Paris. His initial training was as a classical violinist and composer. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he took Olivier Messiaen's analysis class, and won first prizes in...

, Hal McKusick

Hal McKusick

Hal McKusick is an American-born jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist and flautist, most notable for his work with Boyd Raeburn from 1944 to 1945 and Claude Thornhill from 1948 to 1949.-Biography:...

, and Les

Les Elgart

Les Elgart was an American swing jazz bandleader and trumpeter.Lester E. Elgart began playing trumpet as a teenager, and by age 20 had landed professional gigs. In the 1940s he played in bands led by Raymond Scott, Charlie Spivak, and Harry James, and occasionally found himself in bands alongside...

 and Larry Elgart

Larry Elgart

Larry Elgart is an American jazz bandleader, who with his brother, Les, recorded the original rendition of "Bandstand Boogie", theme to the long-running teen dance show, American Bandstand.-Biography:...

. Among his own projects as a leader were his International Sax Band and the Third Herdsmen. In the late 1960s Cameron toured with Paul Winter

Paul Winter

Paul Winter is an American saxophonist , and is a six-time Grammy Award nominee.- Biography :Paul Winter attended Altoona Area High School and graduated in 1957...

.

Further reading

• [ Jay Cameron] at Allmusic
• Bill Moody, The Jazz Exiles:American Musicians Abroad. Includes a chapter on Cameron.