Nathan Davis (musician)

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Nathan Tate Davis (born February 15, 1937 in Kansas City , † April 8, 2018 in Palm Beach , Florida ) was an American musician ( clarinet , tenor saxophone , flute ) of modern jazz .

Live and act

One of Davis's musical partners was Carmell Jones as a child . After training at the Conservatory and the University of Kansas , he came to Berlin in 1960 while serving in the US Army . He stayed in Europe until 1969, where he spent a long time in clubs in Paris a . a. performed with Kenny Clarke , Eric Dolphy ( Last Recordings ) , Francy Boland , Art Blakey , Larry Young , Eddy Louiss and Elvin Jones , but also played with Dusko Goykovich , Joe Haider and Carmell Jones. He completed his studies with André Hodeir . In 1969 he founded a jazz course at the University of Pittsburgh , which he directed until 2013. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1974 , he was appointed professor and director of the ethnomusicology and jazz program at the University of Pittsburgh.

In the 1960s, a number of albums in Germany, including Happy Girl and Hip Walk (SABA), were released under his name. With Etienne Verschueren he led a sextet that performed at the 1970 Jazz Festival in Montreux .

Davis toured Europe in 1985 with the Paris Reunion Band (LP "French Cooking") and Nat Adderley's band . Later he was touring with the All Star Saxophone Summit Roots , which initially included Arthur Blythe , Chico Freeman and Sam Rivers , and later Benny Golson and Odean Pope . In recent years he has produced CDs worldwide with his own company (Tomorrow International Inc.), for example The Other Side of Morning , I'm a Fool to Want You and Parisian Hoedown .

Davis composed more than 300 pieces of jazz, including the suite To Dr. Martin Luther King , which premiered in 1979 at the Kennedy Center , Washington, DC. In 2004 the world premiere of his jazz opera Just Above My Head , based on the novel by James Baldwin , took place. In 2013 his classic piece Matryoschka Blues for cello and piano was premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York.

In 2013, Davis received the BNY Mellon Jazz 2013 Living Legacy Award from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation .

Discographic notes

literature

  • Gisela Albus, Paris-Pittsburgh. A Story in Jazz: The Life of Nathan Davis . 1991.
  • Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Nathan Davis, mort d'un petit géant du jazz , accessed April 10, 2018
  2. ^ Pitt Jazz Studies Program Director Nathan Davis to Retire
  3. ^ BNY Mellon Jazz 2013 Living Legacy Award