Nathan Davis

[mrjazzman]

HELP. I'm looking for anything by Nathan Davis leader/sideman in cd or lp other than "I'm A Fool To Want You", "Rules of Freedom", "Saying Something", "Two Originals(Happy Girl & Hip Walk)" "French Cooking", "London By Night", "Swinging Macedonia", "Salutes The Saxophone", and "For Diz & Bird" as I already own these.............mrjdw

[Bright Moments]

i only have london by night.

i will however be seeing him perform tomorrow night at the melton mustafa jazz festival in north miami!!

[mrjazzman]

wish i was in miami........mrjdw

[Noj]

I dig that London By Night disc, Bright Moments hipped me to it a while back. Good stuff!

[mrjazzman]

I don't have "London by Night" yet, its on order. Heard of Dr Davis before but just really got turned on to him by a friend. He's an obvious deciple(spelling) of Trane and a brilliant, sharp edged hard bop soloist.

[gslade]

All I have is Rules of Freedom (an excellent disc)

I have been looking for Two Originals for quite some time now

[robviti]

Dr. Davis is featured on a 1964 recording by Eric Dolphy that has been issued as Last Recordings ( DIW 320), Unrealized Tapes (West Wind 2016), and Naima (West Wind 2048). There are two other recordings by the collective Roots on the In + Out label: Stablemates and Saying Something. Then there are his four recordings with the Paris Reunion Band.

Have any of you checked out Dr. Davis's webpage: nathandavisjazz.com? Apparently, he's the head of the Jazz Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. The webpage includes a full discography that lists seven leader dates other than the ones mentioned in the original post. The webpage also features some sound clips from a fairly recent release called Live Jazz at Pitt: the 25th Anniversary Concert. From the webpage: "This double CD captures some of the best musicians in the world recorded live on a most historic occasion. By calling on Grammy-nominated recording engineer Dae Bennett to capture this exciting evening on a recording, jazz fans everywhere now have the chance to hear the historic convergence of jazz greats James Moody, Grover Washington Jr., Nathan Davis, Jon Faddis, Randy Brecker, Patrice Rushen, Abraham Laboriel, and Idris Muhammad." You can order the 2cd set directly from the university bookstore for $15.95.

P.S. Here's a Japanese concert poster, also from the website:

Edited February 5, 2005 by jazzshrink

[Bright Moments]

thanks for the link, shrink!!

[brownie]

The 'Peace Treaty' album by Nathan Davis (with Woody Shaw, Rene Urtreger, Klook) is currently being auctioned on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MEWA:IT

I'm not selling my copy!

[robviti]

has anyone read davis's book, writings in jazz?

[marcello]

I have a LP called "Makatuka" on Seue', recorded in Pittsburg, with Rodger Humpries on drums that we could talk about.

Send me a pm today as I'm leaving tomorow for a week in sunny Florida!

Makatuka (1970)

Segué LPS 1000 (LP). Recorded at WRS Recording Studios, Pittsburgh.

Nathan Davis - tenor sax, soprano sax, bass clarinet; Nelson Harrison - trombone; Joe Kennedy - piano; Don DePaolis - electric piano; Roger Humphries - drums; Mike Taylor - bass; Virgil Walters - electric bass; Wheeler Winstead - vocal.

1. Makatuka (Davis) 8:09

2. To Ursula With Love (Davis) 7:41

3. Slave March (Davis) 5:10

4. Extra Sensory Perfection(Davis) 8:45

5. I Want To Be Free (Davis) 3:19

6. Ladies Lib (Davis) 5:49

[Rooster_Ties]

  brownie said:

The 'Peace Treaty' album by Nathan Davis (with Woody Shaw, Rene Urtreger, Klook) is currently being auctioned on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MEWA:IT

I'm not selling my copy!

Has this ever seen the light of day on CD???

Not that I'm aware of, but I thought I'd ask.

Always been interested, especially cuz Woody's on it.

[brownie]

  Rooster_Ties said:

  brownie said:

The 'Peace Treaty' album by Nathan Davis (with Woody Shaw, Rene Urtreger, Klook) is currently being auctioned on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MEWA:IT

I'm not selling my copy!

Has this ever seen the light of day on CD???

Not that I'm aware of, but I thought I'd ask.

Always been interested, especially cuz Woody's on it.

The date was reissued in France by EPM back in 1990. The Nathan Davis Sextet EPM FDC5529. That CD is probably as hard to get nowadays as the original vinyl!

[MartyJazz]

Well, I do have the EPM CD reissue of the PEACE TREATY lp. It's a good session but on the short side.

Here's a link to a Nathan Davis discography:

http://www.nathandavisjazz.com/discography.html

Among a few of my Nathan Davis LPs, I do have the JAZZ CONCERT IN A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY. That's a rare one, I would think.

[relyles]

I have two of the Roots recordings, Salutes The Saxophone and Stablemates, both of which I enjoyed. There are also a few unreleased live performances from radio and television broadcasts by Davis, Roots and the Paris Reunion Band that are circulating among traders.

[riverrat]

  Rooster_Ties said:

The 'Peace Treaty' album by Nathan Davis (with Woody Shaw, Rene Urtreger, Klook)....Has this ever seen the light of day on CD???

Not that I'm aware of, but I thought I'd ask.

Always been interested, especially cuz Woody's on it....

Up, 4 years later......seems to be available on CD now, in a euro version and also Japanese mini-lp.

How does Woody Shaw sound on this one?

[Cliff Englewood]

I saw this one in Tower the other day;

Amazon Link.

Blurb;

Product Description

2009 reissue of this seriously collectable '70s Jazz release from saxophonist Nathan Davis. The album was originally released on Nathan Davis's tiny bespoke Tomorrow International record label in 1976 and only 1000 copies were ever pressed. Davis leads his super-funky group along the narrow path between Jazz and Funk that so many failed to navigate successfully in the second-half of the '70s. It's an album by an artist who is a musician's musician. More importantly - it's a killer! Eight tracks. Soul/Jazz.

The Label that's re-releasing it, Soul Jazz, tend to cover "funky" type of stuff, is it worth checking out???

[robviti]

here's my personal take on this album: some of the tunes are quasi-smooth funky jazz. one or two tracks are slower, post-in a silent way meditative pieces, and one cut is a straight ahead swinger. in other words, i like about a third of the album and dislike the rest. in the end, it's not an album i can listen to all the way through without feeling discombobulated.

MUCH better imo is the already mentioned makatuka. it grooves more than it funks, and there's none of that yucky smooth jazz aftertaste.

Edited February 22, 2009 by robviti

[Cliff Englewood]

  robviti said:

here's my personal take on this album: some of the tunes are quasi-smooth funky jazz. one or two tracks are slower, post-in a silent way meditative pieces, and one cut is a straight ahead swinger. in other words, i like about a third of the album and dislike the rest. in the end, it's not an album i can listen to all the way through without feeling discombobulated.

Thanks for the review, I reckon I'll sample this one before purchasing it then.

Edited February 22, 2009 by Cliff Englewood

[riverrat]

  robviti said:

here's my personal take on this album:

rob are you referring to Peace Treaty or If?

[Niko]

  riverrat said:

  robviti said:

here's my personal take on this album:

rob are you referring to Peace Treaty or If?

if he refers to peace treaty, don't take him serious wish i'd have more substantial things to say, peace treaty is a very nice, comfortable hard bop session with a number of beautiful melodies, (jimmy woode's sconsolato...) (so it's all a bit prettier than a usual hard bop session); nothing exceptional occurs but shaw does play a number of solos which are perfectly good (not better, he's one of my favorite trumpet players...) (a bit like on capeverdean blues for me, otherwise it's a fine album and as an added bonus you get some (but not the full dose) of woody shaw)... guess i really rank the album similarly to capeverdean blues, both as a shaw fan and otherwise...

Edited February 22, 2009 by Niko

[clifford_thornton]

  riverrat said:

  robviti said:

here's my personal take on this album:

rob are you referring to Peace Treaty or If?

If.

Peace Treaty is brilliant hard bop.

[robviti]

it depends on what your definition of "if" is, as if. just kidding. no, i was sharing my opinions on if. peace treaty, as others have pointed out, is great!

[clifford_thornton]

I had this to say in Paris Transatlantic in 2007. Maybe I'm remembering it more fondly than it seemed at the time, but:

  Quote

NATHAN DAVIS

Peace Treaty

SFP 10.003

Reedman Nathan Davis, an American expatriate on the Paris scene from the early ‘60s until 1969, offers up a hard-swinging and rich sextet on his second date as a leader, Peace Treaty (SFP, 1965), back in print through Mo'Records and extended by the addition of two tenor-and-rhythm tracks. The leader is joined here by three others who had staked claim in Europe - drummer Kenny Clarke, bassist Jimmy Woode and trumpeter Woody Shaw - as well as Frenchmen René Urtreger (piano) and Jean-Louis Chautemps (baritone saxophone). The program includes four Davis originals and one each by Woode and Monk; Clarke's position in the Clarke-Boland Big Band (indeed, both Clarke and Francy Boland appeared on The Hip Walk , Davis's third LP, for Saba) probably lent something to the massive and multi-part thematic arrangements on this date. Alternate takes of "Sconsolato" and the Basie-like "Kansas City Special" feature guitarist Jimmy Gourley (who worked with Clarke in organist Eddy Louiss's band), with the leader as the only horn.

Davis, who along with Shaw was one of the last musicians to work with Eric Dolphy before his untimely death, is often compared to Coltrane in terms of tone and phrasing. It's easy to see why on "Ruby My Dear," where his tenor is out in the open, buoyed by lean rhythmic support. Davis has that similarly edgy keen on the highs, contrasted with a supple breathiness on the lows of Monk's theme. As the rhythm section picks up, Davis surely gives chords a workout, but there is more to his phraseology than Trane-isms. He delicately weaves snatches of phrase that impart Monk's wistful framework, husky sound-blocks that could easily be caught in a breeze or change shape like thin fabric (in this sense, he may have learned something else from listening to Monk). Urtreger's comping, while subtle, follows the spry turns and irregular rhythms of the composer, and his hands and the leader's lungs seem quite intertwined. He's given a couple of choruses of his own and, while not stretching out on the material as much as Davis, certainly imbues "Ruby" with an elegantly cobbled personality.

"Klook's Theme" seems straight out of the CBBB book, tightly-arranged with spry unison tenor-trumpet lines and a hefty bottom, all woven above a surging 4/4. Davis is first out of the gates restating and disassembling the theme in his brief, heel-digging solo. Shaw's brainy ellipses point to a different, expanded architecture, while Chautemps is the brawn. Urtreger provides a sped-up Monk over the rock-solid drive of Woode and Clarke, but too quickly the knots are retied and the tune is brought home. Like the CBBB, many of the tunes on Peace Treaty are rather short performances, swinging madly and well-arranged but without much stretching room. Despite the interesting contrasts between the A and B sections of the title piece, one gets the feeling that Davis and his mates are rushing to fit their ideas into a few moments, even as Urtreger and the leader blow fiercely on the tune's legs. Despite this shortcoming - the original LP clocked in around 28 minutes - Peace Treaty provides fierce and catchy hardbop with significant harmonic freedom. In lieu of catching the band live at the Blue Note or Chat qui Peche, this session comes highly recommended.

Edited February 23, 2009 by clifford_thornton