Richard Davis

Richard Davis stood out as an exceptionally skilled and extraordinarily productive jazz bassist whose rich, woody tone and masterful command of the instrument shone whether he performed jazz, pop, or classical repertoire. He performed with elite symphony orchestras, supported vocalists, and created memorable duo settings. Three landmark recordings of the twentieth century featured him: Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch!, Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure, and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. His first album as a leader for Impulse, Heavy Sounds, came out in 1967. Although session and concert demands intensified throughout the 1970s, Davis still issued several significant recordings that decade, among them The Philosophy of the Spiritual in 1971, Dealin’ in 1973, and both Harvest and Cauldron in 1979. He joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an educator in 1977 and remained there for decades. After Way Out West appeared in 1980, he released Persia My Dear in 1987. The Bassist: Homage to Diversity followed in 2001, and Blue Monk, recorded with pianist Junior Mance, surfaced in 2007. The National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master in 2014.

Born in Chicago in 1930, Davis began singing bass in a family vocal trio. While still in high school he took up double bass and performed with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, then called the Youth Orchestra of Greater Chicago; the ensemble gave its inaugural concert at Orchestra Hall in 1947. After graduation he continued double-bass studies with Rudolf Fahsbender of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and earned a degree in music education from VanderCook College of Music.

Davis first worked with dance bands in Chicago nightclubs and secured his initial jazz-trio engagement with Ahmad Jamal in 1952. Those local connections led him to pianist Dr. Don Shirley in 1954; the two moved to New York City and collaborated until 1956. In 1957 Davis entered Sarah Vaughan’s rhythm section and remained with the singer until 1962.

During the early 1960s he became active in both New York’s jazz and classical communities, and his growing reputation brought steady engagements. In 1964 alone he appeared on Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch!, Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure, Booker Ervin’s The Song Book, and Tony Williams’ Life Time. Throughout the decade he also worked with Ben Webster and Joe Zawinul, Roland Kirk, and Jaki Byard, among many others, while freelancing with orchestras led by Leonard Bernstein and Igor Stravinsky, vocalist Carmen McRae, and vibraphonist Cal Tjader. Davis recorded his Impulse leader debut, Heavy Sounds, with drummer Elvin Jones in 1967. The following year he played bass on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. Critics and readers of DownBeat voted him the top jazz bassist each year from 1968 through 1972; his remarkably varied style supported artists ranging from Earl Hines and Jaki Byard to the Creative Construction Company and Stan Getz.

In 1970 Davis released Muses for Richard Davis on MPS, leading an octet that included Roland Hanna, Jimmy Knepper, Pepper Adams, and Freddie Hubbard. He also participated in Bill Lee’s New York Bass Violin Choir alongside Ron Carter, Milt Hinton, and Sam Jones. Philosophy of the Spiritual, a modal hard-bop session issued on Cobblestone in 1972, featured Chick Corea, Lee on second bass, drummer Sonny Brown, percussionist Frankie Dunlop, and guitarist Sam Brown. Davis toured and recorded with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra and contributed to sessions by Hank Locklin, Billy Cobham, Bruce Springsteen, Biff Rose, Roy Ayers, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Donny Hathaway, Grover Washington, Jr., Bonnie Raitt, Harold Alexander, Laura Nyro, and Leon Thomas, among dozens more.

Muse issued Epistrophy and, under the New York Unit name, Now’s the Time in 1973; the latter modal and avant-garde date included saxophonist Clifford Jordan and trumpeter Hannibal Marvin Peterson, both of whom later featured Davis on their own recordings. The 1974 album Dealin’ continued in a groove-oriented, funk-inflected vein with largely the same personnel. Momentum, recorded for MPS in 1975 with Jimmy Raney and Alan Dawson, followed. Davis and pianist Jill McManus issued the duet album As One on Muse in 1976. Galaxy released Fancy Free in 1977, a date conducted by Lee that featured pianist Stanley Cowell, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, saxophonist Joe Henderson, and Cobham. Davis participated in more than two hundred sessions during the 1970s, including Joe Chambers’ The Almoravid, and he backed pop vocalists Danny O’Keefe, Melissa Manchester, and Carly Simon.

After more than twenty-five years in New York, Davis moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in 1977 to join the University of Wisconsin faculty as a professor of music and music history. While teaching he continued to perform and record; Divine Gemini, a duet album with vibraphonist Walt Dickerson, appeared on SteepleChase in 1978, and Muse issued Harvest the same year. In 1979 Davis and saxophonist/clarinetist L.D. Levy independently released Cauldron.

Way Out West, the widely sampled jazz-funk album recorded with Cobham, both Hendersons, and Cowell, came out in 1980 and received international acclaim. Davis performed at Tokyo’s Aurex Jazz Festival with trombonists J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding in 1982 and at the Chicago Jazz Festival in 1984; he was also featured in the 1982 documentary Jazz in Exile. SteepleChase released Tenderness, another Dickerson collaboration, in 1985, and Davis toured and recorded extensively with pianist Mal Waldron during the first half of the decade.

In the late 1980s Davis, pianist John Hicks, and drummer Tatsuya Nakamura formed New York Unit. Between 1991 and 1998 the group issued eight albums on Japan’s King label, including Tribute to Great Tenors, Blue Bossa, Now’s the Time, and Over the Rainbow. During this period Davis also released I Remember Clifford on DIW in 1990 with drummer Ronnie Burrage and pianist James Williams, while Enja issued the 1983 duo recording Body and Soul with Archie Shepp in 1991. In 1993 he established the Richard Davis Foundation for Young Bassists, which organizes an annual conference where emerging players study with professionals and perform together. Simpatio Music released Reminisces in 1994.

Davis founded the Madison chapter of the Center for the Healing of Racism in 2000, extending the work he began with the University of Wisconsin’s Retention Action Project in 1998 to raise graduation rates among students of color.

Palmetto issued The Bassist: Homage to Diversity, a duo recording with Hicks, in 2001. King followed with So in Love that same year and Blue Monk with pianist Junior Mance in 2008. Davis retired from teaching in 2016. Two years later the city of Madison named a street “Richard Davis Lane” in his honor. Health issues led him to enter hospice care in 2021; he died on September 9, 2023, at the age of 93.