# Genius bassist Richard Davis is so ubiquitous he’s almost invisible: Videos, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2022/09/20/genius-bassist-richard-davis-is-so-ubiquitous-hes-almost-invisible-videos-photos/
- Published: 2022-09-20T00:02:27+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**How could someone who’s played so widely and so well with the most famous names
in jazz, rock, pop, and classical music not be a star himself?**

Ican’t rattle off a list of my most beloved guitarists, despite being a so-so guitar
player myself, but I can quickly tell you my top ten bassists. One of my favorites
has played with famous musicians across many genres, but most folks don’t even recognize
his name. As far as I know, my first exposure to the great [Richard Davis](https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/richard-davis-quintet/)
came through Van Morrison’s landmark 1968 LP, _Astral Weeks_, with its seamless 
blend of R&B, pop, blues, folk, and jazz that Morrison called “Celtic soul.” Even
my untrained adolescent ears could hear something in Davis’s playing that jumped
out at me—his throbbing, luscious double bass seemed to guide the music, and later
I learned that he was the de facto bandleader on the sessions.

Much later, I learned that Davis came up in the Windy City and built important groundwork
for his career here. That’s enough for me to claim this brilliant bassist—an exactingly
trained virtuoso as well as a telepathically intuitive improviser—for the Secret
History of Chicago Music.

Davis was born on the south side on April 15, 1930, and grew up singing bass harmonies
in his family’s amateur vocal trio. There were lots of records in their home, and
Davis remembers using a windup Victrola in the basement to listen to Lucky Millinder’s“
Big Fat Mama,” [Lil Green](https://chicagoreader.com/music/why-did-blues-singer-lil-green-end-up-forgotten/)’
s “Romance in the Dark,” Billy Eckstine’s “Jelly, Jelly,” and Avery Parrish’s “After
Hours.”

Davis picked up the bass at age 15, fairly late in life by the standards of a future
professional musician. “I was just enthralled by the sound,” he recalled in a 2013
interview published last year by Allegro, the digital publication of the New York
chapter of the American Federation of Musicians. (Davis joined the union in 1955.)“
The bass was always in the background, and I was a shy kid,” he said. “So I thought
maybe I’d like to be in the background.”

Davis was lucky enough to attend DuSable High (49th and Wabash), which has since
become famous worldwide for producing a staggering array of professional music legends.
The hard-as-nails Captain Walter Henri Dyett served as the school’s music director
from 1935 to 1962, and his teaching techniques were borderline military-style strict
but also hugely successful—he’d previously led the Eighth Regiment Infantry Band
of the Illinois National Guard.

By the time Davis attended DuSable, its alumni included Nat “King” Cole, Dinah Washington,
Gene Ammons, and Von Freeman. Among Davis’s contemporaries under Dyett’s tutelage
were rock ’n’ roll architect Bo Diddley, free-jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins, bassist
Ronnie Boykins, and celebrated sax players Johnny Griffin, [John Gilmore](https://chicagoreader.com/music/saxophonist-john-gilmore-played-with-sun-ra-for-40-years/),
and Eddie Harris.

Davis didn’t have the easiest time studying under Dyett. “He had crude methods but
it was out of what you’d call tough love,” he told _Jazz Inside_ magazine. “He told
me to sit down once and said that I’d never play the bass, and I did exactly what
he probably wanted me to do: I said, ‘I’ll show you one day.’ And 20 years after
I graduated, he was still prodding me, making me do things. That’s a teacher.”

Davis was also extremely driven in school to begin with: “I couldn’t afford lower
than 100 percent, because I was black and I had two strikes against me already,”
he said. “With that kind of discipline and with the discipline of Walter Dyett, 
I had nowhere to go but to the top.” Dyett also pushed Davis to study both jazz 
and classical bass, a versatility that would help him reach the peak of his field.

After classes in high school, Davis began taking lessons with Chicago Symphony Orchestra
bassist Rudolph Fahsbender, another hard-nosed educator. That mentorship lasted 
nine years, including Davis’s time at the VanderCook School of Music, where he earned
a bachelor’s in music education in 1952.

Because Dyett’s classes were known (even in their day) for producing future stars,
bandleaders such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Lionel Hampton sometimes recruited
students directly from DuSable. Dyett had taught Davis about older jazz bassists
such as Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford, and Slam Stewart, and this inspired him 
to start gigging in orchestras and dance bands in the early 50s. During this time,
at a burlesque house in Calumet City, Davis made the acquaintance of pianist Sonny
Blount, soon to be known far and wide as cosmic innovator and galactic being Sun
Ra.

“The first time I met Sonny, my buddies brought him to my house, and he said, ‘I’m
not gonna take you to the moon because you’re not ready yet,’” Davis told Allegro.“
And I said, ‘Who is this guy?’” Ra planted the seed in Davis to see music “on a 
global level,” and that far-reaching vision would be a central theme in the bassist’s
future work.

In 1953, Davis hooked up with the trio led by famed pianist Ahmad Jamal, and the
following year a life-changing opportunity came knocking. Davis knew fellow Chicago
jazz bassist and future star arranger Johnny Pate (also a [SHoCM subject](https://chicagoreader.com/music/johnny-pate-is-one-of-the-great-unsung-architects-of-chicago-soul/)),
who’d been playing in a trio with pianist Don Shirley. Shirley was taking his group
to New York, but Pate didn’t want to leave. To solve the problem, the bassists traded
bands: Pate joined Jamal, and Shirley took Davis to New York, where he stayed for
23 years.

[⌊Sarah Vaughan - September In The Rain (Live from Sweden) Mercury Records 1958⌉⌊
Sarah Vaughan - September In The Rain (Live from Sweden) Mercury Records 1958⌉[

Richard Davis performs with Sarah Vaughan in Sweden in 1958.

Davis was initially intimidated by the profusion of jazz talent in New York, but
he soon found a welcoming community. He landed a gig in Sarah Vaughan’s band in 
1957, playing alongside pianist Jimmy Jones and drummer Roy Haynes; over the next
few years he’d record four albums with the esteemed singer. In the early 60s Davis’s
career exploded, and he worked in ensembles led by luminaries such as Booker Ervin,
Andrew Hill (also from Chicago), Cal Tjader, and Eric Dolphy—he appeared on Dolphy’s
1964 LP _Out to Lunch!_, one of the canonical documents of 60s avant-garde jazz.

Davis had met Dolphy by chance on the subway in 1961, and with Dolphy his playing
evolved into newly abstract realms. “When it comes to freer music, the chords didn’t
matter that much,” he told Allegro. “It was what you’re hearing around you and what
you’re hearing in your own head that shaped the circle of musical events.”

[⌊Out To Lunch (Remastered 1998/Rudy Van Gelder Edition)⌉⌊Out To Lunch (Remastered
1998/Rudy Van Gelder Edition)⌉[

The title track of the famous Eric Dolphy LP _Out to Lunch!,_ on which Richard Davis
plays bass

Echoing the philosophy of Sun Ra, Davis explained what free jazz meant to him: “
Limiting yourself to a particular set of notes and chords is in a sense being a 
slave to the powers that be. We were resisting being imprisoned by chord changes,
trying to free ourselves from the restrictions of scales and rhythms. Some people
call this free music. Some of us called it our music. Unrestricted, indefinable,
and free.”

[⌊Summertime⌉⌊Summertime⌉[

Richard Davis’s bass takes the lead on this 1967 duo with drummer Elvin Jones.

Davis recorded his own albums as well: he cut the classic Elvin Jones duo _Heavy
Sounds_ for Impulse! in 1967, and he stepped out as a bandleader himself on _Muses
for Richard Davis_ (recorded for MPS Records in 1969) and _The Philosophy of the
Spiritual_ (for Cobblestone in ’71). He joined the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra
for several years in 1966, and he continued to back up a staggering variety of fellow
jazzers, including Clifford Jordan, Sonny Stitt, Kenny Burrell, Oliver Nelson, Wes
Montgomery, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Joe Henderson.

[⌊Milktrain / Richard Davis [Muses For Richard Davis(1969) 1/6]⌉⌊Milktrain / Richard
Davis [Muses For Richard Davis(1969) 1/6]⌉[

A track from Davis’s 1969 solo recording _Muses for Richard Davis_, his first under
his own name

In this same period, Davis also crossed over into pop and rock, working with the
likes of Frank Sinatra (for his 1970 _Watertown_ LP) and Barbra Streisand (on several
early albums). Davis became so in demand, with so many jobs on the books, that he
often ended up arriving at a session not knowing much about the artist he’d be accompanying.

Such was the case with the masterpiece _Astral Weeks_. Davis didn’t even get the
chance to say hello to Van Morrison at the session. “He came in and went into a 
booth, and that’s where he stayed, isolated in a booth,” he told Allegro. “He seemed
very shy.”

[⌊Sweet Thing (2015 Remaster)⌉⌊Sweet Thing (2015 Remaster)⌉[

Richard Davis’s bass plays a prominent role on Van Morrison’s “Sweet Thing,” from
_Astral Weeks_.

This is pretty mind-blowing to hear, given that the synergy between Van the man 
and the session musicians—including Davis, vibraphonist Warren Smith Jr., and guitarist
Jay Berliner—vibrates at such a high level that this heady crossover classic has
been topping best-album lists for more than 50 years. Music critic Greil Marcus 
declared Davis’s playing “the greatest bass ever heard on a rock album.” I can’t
help but love _Astral Weeks_ dearly to this day, even though Morrison has proved
himself a terrible COVID crank.

Davis also played on Paul Simon’s “Something So Right,” Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen,”
and Bruce Springsteen’s “Meeting Across the River” (from _Born to Run_). His dizzyingly
diversified talent took him likewise into the world of 20th-century classical music,
and he played under conductors such as George Szell, Leopold Stokowski, Leonard 
Bernstein, and Pierre Boulez. He once worked with composer Igor Stravinsky and trumpeter
Kenny Dorham in the span of one day.

[⌊Janis Ian - At Seventeen (Audio)⌉⌊Janis Ian - At Seventeen (Audio)⌉[

Richard Davis accompanies Janis Ian on the single “At Seventeen.”

Davis also continued to pursue his other great love: equestrianism. He’d worked 
in stables as a kid and became an accomplished horseman, competing in dressage and
jumping. He ultimately decided that one career was enough and stopped short of getting
into trading or racing, but he’s owned and even bred horses—especially after leaving
New York for Wisconsin in 1977.

That was the year Dyett’s lessons bore a new kind of fruit when Davis became a teacher
himself. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison he took the title “Professor of 
Bass (European Classical and Jazz), Jazz History, and Combo Improvisation.” His 
new school and town were overwhelmingly white (a situation Davis wasn’t used to),
and he served as an anti-racist advocate on several fronts. He advised the university’s
efforts to improve its ability to attract and retain students of color, and he served
as its diversity liaison in faculty hiring. He also led Madison’s Institutes for
the Healing of Racism—he founded the nonprofit in 2000 and hosted its meetings in
his home till 2017.

In 1993, he launched the Richard Davis Foundation for Young Bassists, which employs
an all-star staff of veteran teachers to instruct musicians ages three to 18. In
2014, Davis won a Jazz Masters fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
He retired from the university in 2016, and as recently as that year he was playing
in Paris as part of a Coltrane tribute led by fellow out-jazz icon Archie Shepp.

Now in his 90s, Davis remains in Madison, teaching on the side and continuing his
work with the Foundation for Young Bassists (its most recent event was in April 
of last year). “I practice when the mood hits me, depending on what I want to get
done,” Davis told Allegro, sounding like a Zen sage. “I’m also always practicing
when I’m with my students.”

Here’s hoping Davis can continue his important work—but even if he decides to relax
into his well-deserved retirement, his status as one of the world’s most soulful
and virtuosic bassists is already unassailable.

![An illustration of jazz, pop, rock, and classical bassist Richard Davis embedded
in the title card for the Secret History of Chicago Music](https://i0.wp.com/chicagoreader.
com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/SH_richard_davis_web.jpg?fit=1200%2C1214&ssl=1)

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