**This site is maintained by Aisha, Sareenah & Alana Davis, in loving memory of their father Walter Davis, Jr.**
"I see non of y'all learned a damn thing from Walter. Your lower lips are all hanging low that if you stood up, you'd trip over 'em. Walter Davis was a happy man. He lived with an enjoyment of life and if you learn anything from him, it should be that."
-Art Blakey
WALTER DAVIS, JR.
1932-1990
Walter Davis, Jr. was born September 2, 1932 in Richmond, Virginia, and was reared in East Orange, New Jersey. His mother sang gospel; his father and four uncles played church and stride piano. By the time he entered high school, Walter was clearly a gifted classical pianist, but hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the legendary Billy Eckstine big band changed his music and his life. As a teenager, he performed with Babs Gonzalez and his group Three Bips and a Bop. In 1949, he played his first gig with Bird at the Apollo. It went so well that Bird asked Walter’s mother if he could go with him on a road tour. One show happened to be seen by his high school principal; that finished school for Walter.
Within months, Walter was a regular at the historic Harlem and 52nd Street jam sessions that formed the roots of modern jazz. A pair of inseparable friends and giants of the jazz piano, Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, took the promising teenager under their wing and taught him all they knew about the music and the world of jazz. He remained close to them, musically and personally, until their respective deaths.
Walter’s first recording was with Max Roach’s early fifties group. Then he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s 1965 big band that toured four continents, and played with Diz, off and on, for the next thirty years. From 1958-1960, he recorded a classic series of Blue Note albums with Donald Byrd, Art Taylor, and Jackie McLean. The series culminated in Davis Cup, an album of Davis originals and his first session as a leader.
Walter spent the early sixties with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, returning a decade later, in 1975, as the group’s principal composer-arranger. In between, and since, he played with most of the jazz greats in New York, including Sonny Rollins, Philly Joe Jones, Kenny Clarke, Sonny Criss, Pierre Michelot, Archie Shepp, Don Sickler and Miles Davis.
After spending years as the quintessential sideman, in the mid-eighties he began to focus on projecting, in solos and small-group sessions, the distinctive Davis piano style which was known to so few people beyond his jazz contemporaries. A series on the Denon label featured Walter as leader with such sidemen as Art Taylor and Tony Williams, not to mention young lions like Carter Jefferson and Kenny Washington. Four other Davis-led recordings were cut on Italian, French, and Danish labels. In New York, Walter’s piano personality developed further—and received more widespread recognition as the result of solo concerts, appearances with Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and a continuing set of piano-bass duo gigs at Bradley’s that New York musicians are still talking about. Finally, Walter was coming to be viewed as the living link with—and master interpreter of—the founding fathers of modern jazz, particularly Thelonious Monk, Bud, and Bird.
Walter, who did so much for others, particularly young musicians, could not have been more negligent of his own health. He died an untimely death on June 2nd, 1990. He was fifty-seven years old and had been making jazz history for four decades. He is survived by his four daughters Evin, Alana (www.myspace.com/alanadavis), Sareenah (www.myspace.com/sareenah), Aisha (www.myspace.com/livingevidence), and one son Rama.
DISCOGRAPHY:
ALBUMS AS LEADER
Davis Cup (Blue Note BLP4018)
Illumination (Denon Jazz YX565-ND)
Abide With Me (Denon PCM YX528-ND)
Night Song (Denon PCM YX750-ND)
Uranus (Paloscenico PAL15008)
A Being Such As You (Red VPA150)
Blues Walk (Red VPA153)
In Walked Thelonious (Mapleshade 56312)
400 Years Ago, Tomorrow (Owl)
Walter Davis Jr., Live Au Dreher (Night and Day NAD1004)
Illumination* (Pony Canyon D28Y0199)
Scorpio Rising (Steeplechase 1989 Release)
ALBUMS AS SIDEMAN
Max Roach and his Sextet (Debut 105-106)
Max Roach Quartet (Debut 107-109)
Frank Rehak (Dawn DLP1107)
World Statesman/Dizzy Gillespie (Verve MCV8173)
Dizzy in Greece/Dizzy Gillespie (Verve MCV8017)
The Meeting Time/Roger Guerin (Palm (F)21)
Jef Gilson Septette (Spirit Jazz SFP13005)
Our Island Music/Stan Bronstein (Muse MR5072)
New Soil/Jackie McLean (Blue Note BLP4013)
Vertigo/Jackie McLean (Blue Note BLP0185)
Byrd in Hand/Donald Byrd* (Blue Note BLP4019)
Taylor’s Tenors/Arthur Taylor (New Jazz NJLP8219)
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (RCA Victor(f) 430054)
Paris Jam Sessions/Art Blakey* (Fontana 680207)
Roots and Herbs/Art Blakey (Blue Note BLP4347, BLP84347)
Art Blakey at the Champs Elysees
Africaine/Art Blakey (Blue Note)
Sonny Stitt with Art Blakey’s Messengers (Sonnet SNTF691)
Gypsy Folk Tales/Art Blakey’s Messengers (Roulette SR5008)
Philly Joe’s Beat/Philly Joe Jones (Atlantic ATLLP1340)
Philly Joe Jones (Atlantic unissued)
Let Freedom Ring/Jackie McLean* (Blue Note BLP4106)
Slide Hampton and his Orchestra (Atlantic ATLLP(SD)1396)
Walt Dickerson (Audio Fidelity AF2131)
This is Criss/Sonny Criss (Prestige PRLLP7511)
Sonny Criss (Prestige PRL7526)
Teddy Edwards (Prestige PRL7518)
The Way Ahead/Archie Shepp (Impulse A(S)9170)
Day Dream/Archie Shepp (Denon YX-7570-ND)
Blues for Attica/Archie Shepp (Impulse IMPAS9222)
The Sun, Moon and Herbs/Dr. John (Atco ATCOSD32-262)
Horn Culture/Sonny Rollins (Milestone MSP9051)
The Cutting Edge/Sonny Rollins
Ms. Jones to You/Etta Jones (Muse MR5099)
Estimated Time of Arrival/Bobby Watson (Roulette SR5009)
Burn Brigade/Nick Brignola (Bee Hive BH7010)
To Tadd with Love/Dameronia (Uptown UP27.11)
Look, Stop and Listen/Dameronia (Uptown UP27.15)
Caravan/Art Blakey All Stars (RCA Victor/Japan)
Tales of the Guess Who/Babs Gonzales (Expudidance)
‘Round Midnight/Bette Carter (Atlantic)
The Last Stitt Sessions/Sonny Stitt (Muse MC5280)
COMPILATIONS
One Night With Blue Note/Vol.3 (Blue Note BLPCD7-461492)
Atlantic Jazz Bebop/Philly Joe Jones (Atlantic ATL81702)
SOUNDTRACKS
Bird, Original Movie Soundtrack (Columbia SCT44299)
VIDEOS
Art Blakey (unknown)
Sonny Rollins Live (unknown)
This Could Be the Night (1957 uncredited)
MOVIES
A Night in Havana/Dizzy Gillespie (1989 Release)
TELEVISION
Frank's Place (1987-88 CBS)
