White, who had just turned 20 a month before the Red Clay sessions, was in the midst of an extremely productive period as a young drummer coming up on the scene. He was always happy to give Lenny credit on that track.” “He said Lenny came up with the beat and that he himself had nothing to do with it. “Freddie always credited Lenny with that,” says Weiss. That looseness can be attributed in large part to drummer White, whose wide beat and interactive instincts characterize the track. It’s killing but kind of raw, and it goes on for over 12 minutes … not like what you would expect from what gets tailored to be a jazz hit.” As he notes, “What struck me when I went back to check out ‘Red Clay’ was how loose it is.
Weiss and the New Jazz Composers Octet backed Hubbard on two recordings (2001’s New Colors and 2008’s On the Real Side) in addition to playing several gigs with him.
As trumpeter, friend and benefactor David Weiss, who is credited with bringing Hubbard out of self-imposed retirement in the late ’90s, explains, “Later in life Freddie would always announce it as ‘the tune that’s been keeping me alive for the last 30 years.’ We played ‘Red Clay’ every night and he would quote ‘Sunny’ over it every night.” Essentially an inventive line set to the chord changes of “Sunny,” Bobby Hebb’s hit song from 1966, “Red Clay” would become Hubbard’s signature tune throughout his career. Hubbard’s entry into this crossover territory on Red Clay was characterized by the slyly syncopated beats of drummer Lenny White on the funky 12-minute title track, an infectious groover that was soon covered by budding crossover groups all over America. It was a transitional period in the jazz the tectonic shift beginning with Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way, recorded the previous year. They emerged with Red Clay, an album that would not only define Hubbard’s direction over the next decade while setting the template for all future CTI recordings, but would also have a dramatic impact on a generation of trumpet players coming up in the ’70s. With Taylor producing, a stellar cast was assembled at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., for three consecutive days of recording. 27, 1970, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, playing at the peak of his powers after a string of seven brilliant Blue Note albums and three for the Atlantic label, went into the studio to cut his first for Creed Taylor’s CTI label. Freddie Hubbard (photo: William "PoPsie" Randolph)
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