Jesse Davis

A product of Ellis Marsalis’s instruction at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Jesse Davis ranks among the city’s most esteemed musicians. While fronting his own ensemble, he has shared stages with Jack McDuff, Major Holley, Cecil Payne, Illinois Jacquet, Chico Hamilton, Junior Mance, Kenny Barron, Cedar Walton, Nicholas Payton, and Roy Hargrove. In 1996 he joined Phil Woods, Charles McPherson, and Gary Bartz for the Sax Machine tour. Davis began playing saxophone at eleven, after his tuba-playing brother gave him his first horn; until a collarbone injury ended the pursuit, he had hoped to play professional football. A full scholarship then took him to Northeastern Illinois University. Brief study at William Patterson College in Wayne, New Jersey, preceded his transfer to the New School in New York, where he worked with jazz historian Ira Gitler. Still a student, he earned recognition for solo performances at Notre Dame, Wichita State, N.Y.U., Southern University, and Loyola, and in 1989 he was named Most Outstanding Musician at the Down Beat Music Festival in Philadelphia. Davis has led his quartet on record since 1991, guiding the group through more than fifty engagements across Spain, France, Italy, and the U.K. between 1993 and 1995. He resettled in New Orleans in 1996 and made his screen debut in Robert Altman’s Kansas City.