Johnnie Davis

Johnnie Scat Davis (1938)

Johnnie "Scat" Davis (also Johnny "Scat" Davis , born May 11, 1910 in Brazil (Clay County) , Indiana as John Gustave Davis , † November 28, 1983 in Pecos (Texas) ) was an American trumpeter , Scat -Singer and Big Band -Leaders in the field of swing and popular music as well as actors.

Life

Johnnie "Scat" Davis played cornet as a child and as a teenager in the Brazil Concert Band , which was directed by his grandfather; He began his career after playing in various local ensembles, such as the Jack O'Grady's Varsity Entertainers , in the early 1930s as a trumpeter and band singer in the orchestras of Jimmy Joy in Louisville and at Austin Wylie , where his childhood friend from Terre was also Haute , who played pianist Claude Thornhill . Davis then moved to Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians , with whom he first came to Hollywood. In 1933 he went to New York, where he played with his own trio and also with Red Nichols (1933), Will Osborne , Smith Ballew and Glen Gray .

He became known from 1937 through his participation in some Hollywood films, especially the Hollywood Hotel , in which Davis sang the title Horray for Hollywood , written by Johnny Mercer and Richard A. Whiting. Scat Davis starred in a total of 15 films; often - as in some early Ronald Reagan films like Brother Rat - in the role of the singing cowboy. In 1937 he also took part in a film with Dick Powell in which he had an appearance as a comedian and singer. His film career ended in 1944 with Knickerbocker Holiday . Song material from this strip with Scat Davis was used in Robert Altman's 1973 film version of Chandler's Death Knows No Recurrence .

As early as the early 1930s he recorded some numbers with his own trio; from 1935 to 1937 he led his own dance band. In the late 1930s he toured the West Coast again with his own big band, in which 16-year-old Buddy DeFranco also played, and had a successful engagement at the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago . The arrangements were made by his brother, the trumpeter Art Davis.

In 1940, fifteen-year-old Dodo Marmarosa began his career in the Scat Davis band; In 1943 his band accompanied the striptease dancer Ann Corio on a tour. His musically most impressive band, according to Leo Watson, was the short-lived ensemble Davis worked with in the mid-1940s, in which u. a. the saxophonist Joe Reisman played. In 1946 they also performed at the Claridge Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee . Scat Davis later worked with smaller formations. He also recorded some records for Decca .

1951/52 Scat Davis worked for the station WXYZ-TV in Detroit , where he appeared in a morning program with a trio or quartet and on Friday evening in the show Jazz Nocturne . He later moved to Texas , where he worked with his own bands until the late 1960s. Johnnie Davis died of a heart attack while on a hunting trip .

Filmography (selection)

• 1937: Hollywood Hotel
• 1938: Cowboy from Brooklyn
• 1938: Brother Council
• 1939: A Child is Born
• 1943: Sarong Girl
• 1944: Knickerbocker Holiday

Discographic notes

• Johnny "Scat" Davis (King, 1959)

Web links

• Johnnie Davis in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Johnnie Davis at John Gates
• Scat Davis in the Bigband database
• Johnnie Davis at Solid!

literature

• Leo Walker: The Big Band Almanac . Ward Ritchie Press, Pasadena. 1978

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Not to be confused with the bassist Art Davis .
2. ↑ The clarinetist and saxophonist Joe Reisman also worked with Claude Thornhill during this time and was later a successful band leader who u. a. Accompanied artists like Cab Calloway , Billy Eckstine or Sarah Vaughan , otherwise worked in the field of light music.