James Clay & David "Fathead" Newman - The Sound of the Wide Open Spaces

The spaces the title of this album alludes to are those found in and over Texas, the state that produced James Clay and David "Fathead" Newman. When they met in the Riverside studios in 1960, Clay and Newman were the latest in a succession of Texas tenors who had energized jazz since the 1920s. Whether swing-era stompers (Illinois Jacquet and Arnett Cobb), rhythm-and-blues veterans (Newman), or bebop-and-beyonders (Clay and Booker Ervin), tenor saxophonists from Texas had heft in their sounds and an aggressive approach to swing. Newman was one of the mainstays of the Ray Charles band; Clay had made his mark in Los Angeles. Producer Orrin Keepnews put them together with a quintessential hard-core New York rhythm section for this enduring exhibit in the case for a Texas school of tenor saxophone.