Nathan Davis -

Nathan Davis (Feb. 15, 1937 — April 8, 2018) was an American tenor and soprano saxophonist from Kansas City, Mo. He established his recording career in Europe through work with Kenny Clarke, Eric Dolphy, Art Blakey, and the Paris Reunion Band, alongside leader albums including The Hip Walk, Happy Girl, Rules of Freedom, and Makatuka. Davis returned to the United States in the late 1960s and combined further recording work with a long academic career at the University of Pittsburgh, where he founded the jazz studies program and directed the annual jazz seminar.

Background

Nathan Tate Davis was born Feb. 15, 1937, in Kansas City, Kansas. His mother, Rosemary Gates, worked as a nurse and sang on church programs, while his father, Raymond Davis, boxed and collected Jazz at the Philharmonic records. Gates encouraged clarinet because of lower cost. Davis chose tenor saxophone and worked as a jitney dispatcher to finance a Sears Silvertone model. The teenager accompanied Gates at churches and tea parlors with a repertoire that moved from religious material to popular songs.

Davis and a pianist friend won $50 in an amateur contest at the Orchid Room when he was 16. He used the $25 share for a bus ticket to Chicago, where he secured a club engagement and continued high school. Davis worked briefly with pianist Jay McShann in 1955 and also joined the all-woman band led by trumpeter Tiny Davis. He won a scholarship to the University of Kansas and graduated in 1960 with a bachelor’s degree in music education.

Davis entered the U.S. Army in 1960 and served in the 298th Army Band in Berlin. He performed for American troops and befriended saxophonist Joe Henderson when Henderson visited Berlin as a fellow serviceman. Davis left the Army in 1962 and remained in Berlin for club work with trumpeter Benny Bailey and drummer Joe Harris. He substituted for tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson at a concert produced and recorded by Joachim-Ernst Berendt. Drummer Kenny Clarke heard Davis at the concert and invited him to Paris for work at Club Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Davis settled in Paris and worked with Clarke while additional engagements brought collaborations with trumpeter Donald Byrd and multi-reedist Eric Dolphy, who recorded a June 1964 Paris radio session with Davis and Byrd. Dolphy died later that month, and Davis brought trumpeter Woody Shaw to Paris for a working group that expanded with pianist Larry Young and drummer Billy Brooks. Joachim-Ernst Berendt booked Davis for a Jan. 31, 1965 session at SABA-Tonstudio in Villingen with Shaw, Young, Brooks, and bassist Jimmy Woode.

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