James Clay

James Clay is a name new to many modern-day jazz listeners. But Clay's earliest fame came in the late 1950s when the young woodwind expert arrived on the Los Angeles jazz scene as a contemporary of this fellow Texan Ornette Coleman. Never an avant-garde experimenter like Coleman, Clay was immediately heard by his peers as a gifted mainstream player with ears open to a wide harmonic range. Clay went into obscurity for nearly 30 years before making a comeback.

A fine tenor saxophonist who was part of the long tradition of Texas tenors, Clay was born in Dallas. Although early on he mostly played r&b and blues-oriented music, he was an early associate of Ornette Coleman and was open to playing in freer settings. He spent ten years in the Ray Charles band. He moved up North in the mid-1950s and recorded with drummer Larance Marable in 1956.

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