“If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” – Louis Armstrong
Hello all
Onto my next Jazz adventure, and we are still with David “Fathead” Newman, but this time he is joined by James Clay. The wide-open spaces referred to in the title is not a reference to free jazz, but a description of Texas, the home state of both Clay and Newman.
The album was supervised by Cannonball Adderley. Adderley, who had signed with Riverside in 1960, struck up a good rapport with label owner Orrin Keepnews, immediately getting into fruitful A&R territory.
The band that Adderley put together in 1960 for this album was James Clay (tenor saxophone, flute), David “Fathead” Newman (tenor saxophone, alto saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Sam Jones (bass), Art Taylor (drums).
It all starts off a bit too energetic for me, and the first song “Wide Open Spaces” is a bit too long for me coming in at over 12 minutes. It’s not until the 3rd song “Some kinda mean” that the pace starts to suit me.
But its the very laid back ballad “What’s New?” that is the pick of the songs for me, where Newman plays alto sax and, Clay plays the flute, and I must also point out Wynton Kelly lovely piano playing. Maybe in the future, I may look into him.
Going to call this my 2nd jazz album, and I found it a lot tougher to get into, than the previous album “Ray Charles, Presents David Newman – Fathead” which I found more soulful. One thing I will take out of it is the piano playing of Wynton Kelly which I enjoyed, sometimes more than the wailing saxophones.
Fruitless Fact: The term “Texas tenor” was originally coined to describe the sound and style of such swing era players as Herschel Evans, Illinois Jacquet, Buddy Tate, Budd Johnson, Arnett Cobb and others, and has subsequently been applied to second-generation players from Texas that included James Clay, David “Fathead” Newman and Marchel Ivery. What these players had in common was a big sound and a feeling for the blues. Cannonball Adderley, in the notes to an album by Clay and Newman, described the Texas sound as “a moan inside the tone.”
For the geeks: I have it on CD, David “Fathead” Newman – Four Classic Albums by Avid Jazz.
