His generosity has benefited many artist/scholars and he has made a profound impact on the perception of jazz as it exists today in the academy. We owe a great deal to him.
- Geri Allen regarding Nathan Davis
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the historic opening of Terence Blanchard’s Champion at the Met in New York City. Back in September of 2022, I also wrote about Wayne Shorter’s …(Iphigenia), which showed at the Kennedy Center in New York City in 2021.
Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking and influential opera X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X premiered at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia on October 9, 1985, and was subsequently revised and expanded the following year for a production at the New York City Opera. Finally, it shows at the Met later this year, a highly anticipated event and long overdue.
All of this signals a new and exciting trend in Black musical theater.
As I’ve written about before, the groundwork for these accomplishments was set back in 1959 with King Kong, the first All-African jazz opera - an extraordinary musical collaboration that took place in apartheid-torn South Africa. You can read more about that here:
However, I suspect very few people have ever heard of Nathan Davis’s Jazzopera: Just Above My Head, which premiered at the Pittsburgh Opera Theater in 2004. It is based on the 1979 James Baldwin novel.
Davis completed Jazzopera while touring in the 1980s with his Paris Reunion Band. In 1984, he asked Baldwin for permission to proceed with his project. He received a verbal OK and asked Baldwin for permission in writing. He never received it. While touring in Paris in 1987, he heard that Baldwin had died the day before. Two months later he returned to Pittsburgh thinking his project was permanently shelved. But when he got home, he found a letter in the mail from Baldwin that contained his long-sought-after written permission. You might say “The rest is history.” But until Jazzopera makes it to the Met, I’m holding out.
On this week’s journey, we follow the path of Dr. Nathan Davis, one of America’s most respected artist/scholars.
Nathan Davis was born and grew up in Kansas City, Kansas - two blocks from where Charlie Parker grew up. In 1960, he graduated from the University of Kansas as a music education major. After college, he joined the military and served in the 298th Army Band stationed in Berlin. When he got out of the service, he stayed in Berlin and recorded a concert for Joachim Berendt called Expatriate Americans in Europe. Davis recalls, “I was asked to substitute for the great tenor Lucky Thompson, who couldn’t make it due to illness. Kenny Clarke heard me and invited me to join him in Paris at the famous club St. Germain des Prés…. So I ended up staying in Europe for almost 10 years, about seven of those in Paris.”
In 1965, Davis recorded his debut album, Happy Girl.
It was recorded and released by the German SABA label (Schwarzwälder-Apparate-Bau-Anstalt), founded in 1958 by Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer. In 1968, the label was renamed MPS Records. You can read more about this great label here:
Happy Girl is an amazing debut with solid performances by sidemen Woody Shaw on trumpet and Larry Young on piano. From this album, here is the smoker Theme From Zoltan:
A few months later, Davis followed up Happy Girl with the more straight-ahead Peace Treaty, again with Woody Shaw but this time with Kenny Clarke on drums. It was recorded on the French SFP label. Then in September 1965, he recorded Hip Talk, again for the SABA label.
From this album, here’s the wonderful, While Children Sleep:
This is a great album with awesome sound, a cool cover, and just excellent all-around music.
From 1966 to 1968, he studied at the Sorbonne, taught jazz history at the Paris American Academy, established in 1965 by American musician Richard Roy, and studied composition with French composer André Hodeir. In 1969, while still working in Paris, the University of Pittsburgh contacted him to start a jazz music program - one of the first in the country. He moved back to the States to become the founding director of the jazz studies program there. While at Pitt, he earned his Pd D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
In 1971, Davis recorded two more fine recordings on the short-lived Segué Records label. Segué was an unsuccessful attempt by the WRS Motion Picture Labs in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh to get into the music business.
Segué’s first release was Nathan Davis’s Makatuka.
From that album, here is To Ursula with Love:
The following year, Segué released The 6th Sense In The 11th House.
This is an equally impressive session well worth close listening.
Here’s one more for the road. In January 2013, Davis’s cello-piano duet Matryoshka Blues premiered at the Weill Recital Hall in New York City’s Carnegie Hall. Though mostly a classical work, it was influenced by Joe Henderson and John Coltrane. Davis said, “You know me. There is going to be some jazz in there.”
This is wonderful music. I wish he had recorded more music of this nature; however, that was not to be the case. Davis passed away on April 8, 2018. Although Nathan Davis’s recorded output may be small, it casts a long shadow.
As we witness a renaissance in Black musical theater, we can only hope that the Met will add Jazzopera: Just Above My Head to their upcoming schedule. It would be a fitting tribute to the great Dr. Nathan Davis.
Next week, on that Big River called Jazz, we’ll dig our paddles in and explore the calmer waters of Frankie Trumbauer.
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Until then, keep on walking….