ALBUM REVIEWS : DAVID (FATHEAD) : NEWMAN/ELLIS MARSALIS/CORNELL DUPREE : “Return to the Wide Open Spaces”<i> Amazing</i> ** 1/2

Taped “live” at a Ft. Worth nightclub, this is an all-star jam session where jazz-tinged-with-blues-feeling is the call. Is the high degree of soulfulness here due to the fact that the headliners--save pianist Marsalis, who is from the Crescent City--are Texas-grown players? In any event, there’s a lot of good, unpretentious playing here, and saxmen Newman, James Clay and Leroy Cooper, guitarist Dupree, trumpeter Dennis Dotson are given plenty of room to groove. Things range from foot-stomping shuffles--”Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” “Two Bones and a Pick”--to “A Night in Tunisia” and Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.” More originality and less predictability would have improved this date.--Z.S.