Feature interview Art Davis

Feature interview Art Davis

Date Posted: July 23 2011

Written By: Chicago Jazz

Chicago trumpeter Art Davis talks about his life in music and his philosophy on playing jazz.&media=news&topic=music" style="color: #154B83; text-decoration: none; background: #fff;">

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in his own words...Art Davis

Chicago trumpeter Art Davis has toured with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney. As a charter member of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra (formerly Jazz Members’ Big Band), he has appeared with Joe Williams, Kurt Elling, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Nancy Wilson, and Jimmy Heath, among others. He has also performed with such notables as Maynard Ferguson, the Woody Herman Orchestra, Natalie Cole, Diane Schuur, Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis, Jr., Tony Bennett, and Michael Feinstein. Davis appears on many recordings, including those with Frank Mantooth, Janice Borla, Jackie Allen, Rob Parton, Tommy Muellner, Kelly Brand, and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. More recently, he has played and recorded with the Mulligan Mosaics Big Band, Jeru and the Red Rose Ragtime Band.

Davis has degrees in Music Education and Musicology from University of Illinois, where he attended during the tenure of the legendary John Garvey. As a graduate student, he specialized in ethnomusicology with an emphasis in African music. For over fifteen years, he has been mentored by such master drummers as Gideon Foli Alorwoyle and Abubakari Luna.


Chicago Jazz Magazine: Tell us about your early years.

Art Davis: I grew up in Vienna, Virginia, and began studying trumpet, went to high school there and had a lot of great experiences playing both classical and jazz. I was mostly a classically trained trumpet player. But I knew I loved jazz, so when it came time to apply to colleges, around 1970, there weren’t many choices if you wanted to study jazz. There was Berklee, of course, North Texas State, Indiana University, and University of Illinois. I got accepted to most of those schools, and thought I wanted to go to North Texas, but my mom didn’t think that North Texas was a very good academic school, so she talked me into going to University of Illinois.

I had heard their band on the radio when John Garvey had come to town and promoted their state department tour, so I knew they were good, but I didn’t know much about them. Anyway, those were my mom’s wishes, so I thought I’d try it.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was she thinking that U of I gave you a stronger fallback position in case music didn’t work out?

Davis: I think she thought that if you did well academically, you could go into another field if you wanted to––teaching or whatever. So I decided to give it a year and went out there. I didn’t immediately take to it, except that I knew the top band, led by John Garvey, was really good. They had some incredible musicians like Ron Dewar, Cecil Bridgewater, Howie Smith, a number of really good players.

I loved their spirit. So after a year or so I decided, Okay, I’d like to stay here. I’m very happy I stayed. U of I–Champaign at the time had a scene that included musicians outside of the school––it was sort of a town scene, with a bunch of young students thrown in the mix. That’s where I first met Ron Dewar and a whole bunch of musicians. Some of the musicians were my age, like Ed Petersen, Kelly Sill, Dennis Luxion, Joel Spencer, Steve LaSpina, John Burr, the list goes on… I know I’m leaving people out. Within those first couple of years, I met all those people, and I noticed, Wow, they are very serious about what they do.

That’s what caught my attention, that jazz was not just something you do for fun; it wasn’t just some easy thing. It took me two or three years to realize that this is what I wanted to do, because up to that point I had just been studying classical stuff, and how to play the trumpet. So by the third year, I decided to get into this, and that’s when I started really practicing the art of jazz.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Let’s backtrack a little. Did you have musical parents?

Davis: No, but not unmusical. In other words, nobody in my immediate family played an instrument, but my father was a record collector, mostly traditional jazz. He was a stereophile, so he brought a lot of records into the house that were of all styles, so we had folk music, blues music, lots of great classical music... Incidentally, a lot of it was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner, so I didn’t know it at the time, but I was listening to some of the best in the world. Of course, a lot of traditional jazz, which explains why I got involved in so much traditional jazz work, which I do to this day. My mom didn’t play an instrument but she loved to sing, and would sing standards around the house. So that was my introduction to standards, which I realized I was doing all the time in Chicago, on jobbing bands. So it was a very fortunate environment to grow up in.

My brother became a clarinet player––he was two years older than me. Like all brothers would do, we were always messing around. Some of the things we would do were musical games, like tapping different parts of your body, or we would sing together, which I now recognize as a very important thing, to sing. I’d say I came from a musical family.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: How did you choose the trumpet?

Davis: That’s an interesting question. I didn’t really choose it. I knew I wanted to play an instrument, and my brother did too. And I remember––and my mom disputes this––but my parents came home with two instruments, a clarinet and a trumpet. And my brother, who’s older than me, immediately said, “I want to play the trumpet.” And that was cool, so I said, “Sure, I’ll play the clarinet.” But my brother had pretty bad asthma––unfortunately for him, because he really did want to play the trumpet. Well, it shows the lung-power needed to play the instrument.

So I ended up with the trumpet. The instrument I really wanted to play was the French horn, but that was too expensive for us at the time, so trumpet was cool. But I think my interest in the French horn became a factor in my loving the flugelhorn so much, and I play it a lot––maybe half the time. That’s because it has a French horn kind of sensibility about it.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You didn’t know it at the time, but at U of I you were at the center of what has now become a large cross-section of the Chicago jazz community. What was it about Garvey and the program that seemed to produce so many successful musicians?

Davis: To me, a big part of it is John Garvey. He was a true eclectic. He was a character––he nurtured individualism. Other bands at that time were more regimented, but Garvey created what I would call a true jazz scene, in the old tradition of bringing forth individuality, and I think a lot of those people that came down there in the sixties––besides the fact that they may have been dodging the draft––came down to be in a band that had a true individual nature.

They did odd charts, they did new music-type stuff, they did old jazz, which the other bands would never do, meaning Jimmie Lunceford, stuff like that. They had a composer who is still with us today, named Jim Knapp, who wrote completely original compositions using two flugels, three trumpets, three trombones, and other brass. It was unusual, and he’s a great composer. And then I heard this guy Ron Dewar playing tenor. I first heard him on records when I was in high school. He was featured on a tune called “The Thrill Is Gone,” and it really captured my imagination. Here’s a guy who plays great, but not totally like Coltrane, and not totally like Sonny Rollins––it was his own sound. And so that sound and that style nurtured creativity. I hadn’t achieved my own voice yet, but I knew that was where I wanted to go. I wanted to achieve that.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: To what degree was John Garvey’s success due to the curriculum he set out versus his interaction personally with the musicians?

Davis: First of all, there was no curriculum. There were no classes in jazz there. From the time I got there to the time I left, jazz was not particularly supported down there, I hate to say it. They would like to say it is now. And Garvey was kind of a maverick himself. He died, I believe, around eight years ago, but he was a great violist with the Walden String Quartet, and later he got into New Music, which was experimental music, which goes back to the forties up to around 1959. Garvey discovered jazz and what he could do for it. And he discovered all these individualistic musicians down there, and he put them together and let them go.

And all he did was to guide them in terms of how to interpret the charts. And Garvey used these bits of theatre in his pieces, instead of like, Oh, we’re a jazz band and this is what we do. There would always be a funny thing he would add to the mix. We always used singers, and we had a great singer, Don Smith, who was excellent. I hear he’s still around, and I always loved his singing. He made more a career from his piano playing, and he’s also a wonderful flute player.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Did you decide to make a career out of music while you were at U of I?

Davis: Well, even back then it was uncertain. But I kept working to become a better trumpet player. I had the common sense to know that you needed to do everything in order to become a musician in the field. And the other part of my brain was the notion that I really wanted to play jazz. And play all kinds of jazz. So it was kind of a balance of two loves, a balance of practicality and love of jazz.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What is it about jazz that informs your classical playing and, conversely, what is it about your classical playing that informs your jazz playing?

Davis: Well, I know the way I play jazz trumpet––the nature of my articulation, my sound and sense of intonation––has a lot to do with my training in classical music. That’s not going to leave me––it was inculcated in me by my high school teacher from way back. I don’t play classical seriously anymore, but I have observed that a lot of the best classical trumpet players have some kind of background in jazz these days. Even the famous Adolf Herseth, who was the long-time first trumpet player in the CSO. He had been a lead trumpet player in the Navy way back in Big Band Era. And trumpet players, particularly the first trumpet player, have to have some sort of fearlessness.

The first trumpet player currently in the Chicago Symphony––I don’t think he’s played much jazz, but he played in one of the drum and bugle corps in recent years. I have known people in those corps, and if you are playing the lead lines, you have to put it all out there and not be afraid. I think one informs the other. In other words, you can’t be a classical player in any sense and be timid. In the jazz field, being a former classical player helps you to do all the things that you need to do––play in tune, know how to interpret a phrase, and so forth. There are a lot of similarities. In fact, a lot of the old black jazz players played classical music but couldn’t get jobs in symphony orchestras. I believe Coleman Hawkins was a cello player, and he brought that virtuoso concept to his tenor playing in jazz. Bird was a virtuoso, some people don’t think Miles was, but he was in Julliard, and you don’t get there for no reason, Clifford Brown was definitely a virtuoso, Booker Little… you can keep going down the list. I think there has almost always been a comfortable alliance between the two.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was there a moment when you knew that you were going to be making a living as a jazz player, or did it just sort of evolve?

Davis: I think it just sort of evolved. That’s one thing I never worried about, was whether I would make a living at it. I guess it was kind of stupid. Another way of putting it is I had no chance of being something else, although I was a Music Education major. But that’s just because people told me to do that to have something to fall back on. But I was young and foolish. If things hadn’t worked out I probably would have moved to a city, and if I wasn’t good enough, I would have played till I couldn’t play anymore and then gotten a real job, which happens to some people, unfortunately.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Was there anyone in particular that was a musical inspiration to you?

Davis: There’s so many really. Well, I was always an eclectic. I can tell you there were certain players that I became obsessed with. Clifford Brown––once I discovered him I couldn’t get enough. And Miles was always there, I always liked his bands and the way he interpreted melodies and stuff. I never copied Miles per se, but it kind of filtered into my being, and I think he’s more of an influence now than Clifford Brown is. I always loved Coltrane for his feeling for the music. I always loved Louis Armstrong, because how could you not? And I went through phases with all the greats. I listened to all of them, going down the lineage, from Louis Armstrong all the way up to Woody Shaw, and everyone in between.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You described yourself as an eclectic. Do you have a favorite style?

Davis: Me and my friends in Champaign, like Dennis Luxion and Ed Petersen, we were younger and we knew somehow that bebop was the hardest thing to do, with the tempos and the key changes and everything. If I were to go back and practice it a little more, that’d probably be the best thing I could do. Things I like to do––anything that’s ensemble-oriented, like early jazz––even modern free jazz, if you are with really great players who listen to each other––and generally post-bop, the Wayne Shorters, the Joe Hendersons… I’m very fond of that era.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You’ve played with a lot of big bands and also in small group formats. If you could choose your ideal lineup, what would it be?

Davis: If I want to showcase my playing, I would do it through so-called post-bop playing, where it’s not predictable bebop II-V-I’s, although I tell my students you better learn to do that. But my preference is to play really good post-bop tunes. I play with a band called Baker’s Million, which features the music of Steve Million, the pianist, and the compositions of trombonist Andy Baker. Million has been doing this for a long, long time, and I really know a lot of his tunes. I’ve been on a lot of his demos. He puts me on his demos and then he hires Randy Brecker! [laughs] That’s okay, because I love Randy.

But I love Steve’s writing, and that’s an example of what I would call post-bop writing and playing. Another one of my favorite post-bop composers is Kelly Brand. I’ve recorded on three of her albums. I’ve often described her music as picturesque and emotionally evocative. And she does that all in her own harmonic language.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: It seems you’ve accompanied a lot of singers over the years. Is that by choice?

Davis: Yeah, I like working with singers. I know some musicians are like, Oh, singers––I just wanna play my solo and get on with it. I think along the way I’ve learned to appreciate singing for itself. And also, as a trumpet player, I realize that singing is the same as trumpet playing; it’s just that your vocal chords are in a different place. What we are trying to do, and should be, on any wind instrument at least, is to play like you are singing.

You can play fast, but it’s like singing. I mentioned earlier John Coltrane. In the fifties and sixties he was one of the fastest players, but he always had a singing quality to what he did. So when people say, Coltrane played too many notes, he wasn’t––he was actually singing through his horn. And it’s easier to play fast on a saxophone, so let them do it. Obviously trumpets and brass instruments, we have no choice really but to approach it as a singing instrument, the way a singer might.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Trumpet is a powerful lead instrument. How do you keep from overpowering a singer?

Davis: There are several things. First of all, you have to respect the singer when they are doing their job. You can’t play any old thing, or just solo behind them––you have to listen to them, know the song they are singing, know the nature of the song. And when they are singing, it is important to complement their phrase. Don’t play while they are singing––try to play in-between as much as possible, and understand the style they are trying to sing. I’ve played with traditionalists, I’ve played with modernists and with some that are real far out in some ways, and they each have a sound characteristic. Sometimes I try to adjust my sound to what they are doing.

One singer might be real mellow, and you might want to use the flugelhorn. Others may be singing hard, so I’ll get my trumpet out and play harder. And also when you are playing your solo, make that fit their style. And I think that’s why I have been on so many records, because I’ve tried to do these things. Most of it is intuitive, but I can tell you it’s something I think is very important.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Let’s talk about some of the vocalists you’ve played with. For example, you toured with Ray Charles.

Davis: He’s the guy I toured with the most––I was with him for a full year. I don’t think there was a night where I didn’t get chills down my spine listening to him––and he was so close to us in the band. He could be a real jerk sometimes as a person––sometimes. But every night when we would finally play the show, I would be like, Wow! Even if he sang “Georgia,” I would be like, Wow, how does he do that? And it was just the nature of his voice and the feeling, a real honest deep blues feeling that he had. Another person I played with was Rosemary Clooney, and she had a very laid back quality, at least in the years I played with her. But you could tell she truly loved every song she sang, and she sang every song with a lot of heart. Not like some diva, who just sings really well and throws the lyrics away. I worked recently with Debbie Boone, who is the daughter-in-law of Rosemary.

She was joking with the audience about how Rosemary never understood why she warmed up so much. Debbie is a very good singer and a very proper singer. She would always warm up and do all these gymnastics to make sure her voice was in shape for the concert. Rosie never did that––she would never warm up, she thought it was stupid. She had the feeling to back it up though. And Debbie does too.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You had some dates with Sinatra when he was older.

Davis: Yeah, it was towards the end of his career. I didn’t do a lot of things with him, but I was lucky to sub for a trumpet player in the orchestra a few times. It was a real thrill to see the legend himself. And there were times when he sounded like the old Sinatra. And I liked some of the things he did later on. He wasn’t really up to par, but there were times when, Oh my God, that’s the real Sinatra! But he had a terrific orchestra: Bill Porter on lead trombone, Danny Barber on lead trumpet and Mike Smith on lead alto. There you have three of the best lead players in the world!

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Describe quintessential Sinatra singing.

Davis: I think the ability to tell a story. I think he learned the lyrics and the melody really well, and from all I’ve heard, he studied––at least informally by listening––he studied a lot of the great classical players. So that’s an important thing again to repeat––that you can learn a lot about phrasing from classical players. If you are an up-and-coming jazz musician, listen to the great violin players, listen to how they connect their phrases, notice how they carry a phrase; they don’t just play it, they build it up from one thing to another.

Then when there is a natural release, you let it go, and then you start the next one. And all those phrases put together should tell a story. It’s kind of hard to put into words, but I think if you understand what I’m saying, and listen that way, you will get it. There are trumpet players that play that way, a lot of them. Off the top of my head, my favorite is the late, great Timofei Dokshizer. I always loved how he could magnify a phrase, even on some tunes that I thought were stupid. That’s when you know that it is a good musician. Sonny Rollins was another one. He played a lot of what I used to call “stupid tunes”––children songs, novelty songs, you know, “Toot-Toot-Tootsie, Goodbye”—and yet I would buy his albums and just be so attracted to what he was doing. So, it’s not so much the tune or the original intention of the composer, it’s how you treat the tune. I learned a lot from those guys. I think a lot of those ideas originally come out of classical music. And how these great, largely African American, musicians had to learn from somebody, somewhere, and that was what was around them. And of course there is the blues and all that tradition. But they had to learn everything in order to get themselves across.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Didn’t you work with Joe Williams?

Davis: Yeah, in what we used to call the Jazz Members Big Band––now it’s called the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. And we were playing at the Chicago Jazz Festival. And apparently Joe was listening to us on the radio and we were playing some Ellington, actually “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.” And he was like, Who is this band? He was really taken aback, and then he realized who we were, and that one of his best friends, Eddie Johnson, was in the band. And so that locked it up, and he was like, “Oh, I love these guys!” And it just so happened that he was singing at the Kennedy Center Honors every year, and they had been using the great Count Basie Band. But the audience––this was a dinner audience––they thought the band was too loud, and they canned them…which is kind of hard to believe. But Joe, who had been singing with them, decided he’d get us, because he heard us, he liked us, and he knew we could play different styles. And his best friend Eddie was in the band. This was back in 1988 or so, and we have been playing there ever since, thanks to Joe Williams. But Joe Williams as a singer had quite a presence. He had such poise, and the quality and the richness of his voice. It’s like what I saying about Ray Charles––when you get close to it and hear it, it’s like, Now that’s a voice! And great intonation and poise on stage, and great blues feeling, and you could see why Basie loved him so much and used him throughout the whole 1950s and beyond. But yeah, I loved working with him.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You’ve also worked with some of the current great singers––Kurt Elling, for example.

Davis: Yeah, I haven’t worked in too many small groups with him, but I have done some big band work with him. Kurt is a great singer too. He developed his own style, I remember when Kurt was sort of a college kid, just starting out. He did a lot of neat things back then, but now he’s a singer. He’s got an incredible voice now. And not even just the quality of it, but the control of it. It’s really something to hear. And obviously he’s so famous now, you can see why. But I haven’t seen him much in recent years, so I can’t comment much more than that.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: You mentioned the Members Big Band. Weren’t you there at the beginning, with both Steve Jenson and Jeff Lindberg?

Davis: Yeah. They had the original idea. They became co-leaders until the tragic passing of Steve. We were in Champaign in 1978, and we had a band that was truly exceptional, led by John Garvey. Of course, nobody ever said it, but the band was filled with people from the town and not from the school, but we had a band that was real good. A lot of us migrated up to Chicago at the same time. You alluded to that earlier, a great migration to Chicago of musicians coming up at the same time. And I moved to Chicago, and they already had this idea of having a group largely built off that 1978 band. And that’s how it got started. We started working right away at a club called Redford’s, and from there we went to several different clubs, and ended up largely working at Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn. Now we are all over the place––Orchestra Hall, working for McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal, who we worked with twice, and many, many other great artists. That’s another great experience I’ve had in Chicago.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What compelled you to go into teaching?

Davis: Well, I had my Music Ed degree. Not that that means that much, but it sort of fell on my lap. There was a new jazz department opening up at what was than called the American Conservatory, I don’t think they are around anymore. Just through recommendation I was hired, and the department head’s name was Greg Schearer, and he hired Ed Petersen, Jack Mouse, me, I think Willie Pickens, the late Frank Dawson… anyway a bunch of great players. We just kind of coalesced around this school as adjunct members, and it turned out I really liked it. I became a classroom teacher, a private trumpet teacher and an ear-training teacher, and I’ve been doing those ever since at various institutions. That’s what I do today at Northern Illinois University.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Is teaching more rewarding to you at this point in your career than playing?

Davis: Not necessarily. They are both rewarding. You can ask just about any jazz teacher what they would rather do, and they would say, “play.” We are all selfish in that way. Generally, we jazz teachers have such a love for the music that we feel it’s almost a duty to convey that love through teaching the students. They already have the enthusiasm. Like this year, I taught a class called Jazz Literature out at Northern. I always taught it as though I was the lecturer.

This year I thought, I’m going to turn the table. I’m going to have the students bring in recordings that they truly love––the things that turn them on now, or that got them interested in the music. And I learned more stuff this semester than I have in a long time. They brought in stuff by people that I had never heard of, and from people that I know, but I didn’t know those particular recordings. It just goes to show you that you never stop learning.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: It’s been said that great jazz is about great moments.

Davis: Yes, yes.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: When you look back over your career, what do you consider to be your great moments?

Davis: There are many great moments, I guess, and it’s hard to remember them all. Many of them are with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra a.k.a. the Jazz Members. That could have been anywhere, like Fitzgerald’s. Now we are playing every Monday at Andy’s and that’s a great band. I was in a band with Ron Dewar––we were playing “free” music. It was a band where we rehearsed all the time, and played a fair amount of gigs. There are a number of moments, some of them I have on disc now. And I’ve played them in recent years, and I’m like, Oh, wow, how did that happen?! And then there was the Memphis Nighthawks, and I only played valve trombone with the band for a few months, but from the standpoint as a listener, when they had the great, late Joel Helleney playing the trombone, there were moments in that band that were incredible. I would also add that I have had several great moments in more current bands, including Mulligan Mosaics Big Band, Jeru and the Red Rose Ragtime Band.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What is your theory as to why jazz has so diminished in popularity?

Davis: It’s been like that for a very long time. I think part of it is that you can turn on the radio and not hear any real jazz. Even in this area, we used to have more––WBEZ used to have jazz. It’s all about market shares and all the corporate bullshit.

The business people are afraid to go out on a limb and put it on the radio. If it’s not on the radio, how’s anybody going to know about it? No one even knows about it. I’ve been in some jazz bands where we are playing out in public and some young person will walk by and they will look at us like, What are you?, like we are some kind of dinosaur or something. And it’s a shame, it really is. The people I teach at Northern are young, and they have a true passion for the music. I know today music has more to do with business than anything else. And maybe because of that some people don’t think it’s cool to like jazz––you know, it’s cool to like hip-hop or whatever.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What do you do when you are not playing music?

Davis: In the last five years I haven’t had time for hobbies. I’ve been teaching full time at Northern, and driving back and forth and doing gigs as well. If I had the time I would like to get out––I love the outdoors. I would to do more hiking; I love Canyon Country, Utah. I’d like to get back into fishing, which I did a lot as a kid. I used to do a lot of artwork, drawing mostly, before I got into jazz. I like the Cubs, well sort of. They have broken my heart so many times, but I am a baseball fan.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you do much reading?

Davis: Yeah, I love to read. My friend Kelly Brand is my filter. She seems to have a knack for finding really good books, so if she says, “Alright I’ve got a really good book for you,” nine out of ten times it is. I don’t normally like fiction, but if she has a fiction book and endorses it, I’ll buy it.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: What kind of reading do you prefer?

Davis: Non-fiction. I like biographies. That’s probably my favorite, especially musicians. I think one of the reasons I can teach jazz history fairly well is I’ve read so many biographies, because I’ve always wanted to know about these guys I hear on a recording. Like, Who’s this guy Frankie Trumbauer? I read a book by Dicky Wells. I read books about people that I never thought I’d buy a book about. One thing I do at school during my off time is to go up to the music library and browse around. I found a book about Warne Marsh––some of my favorites are about real obscure or lesser-known artists. You can learn so much about what drove them to become what they became.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Do you have plans of putting out your own disc at some point?

Davis: If I find the time to do it, yes. But that’s always been a tough thing for me to do, because I am such an eclectic performer and I like all the styles I play. One of my friends put out a record and sort of admonished me, and said, “You should put something out that’s contemporary.” It’s awfully hard to do that, and I don’t think it makes sense to put out a totally eclectic record—a modern tune and then a swing tune and then a traditional tune and then a bebop tune—it’s a little schizophrenic for my taste.

Chicago Jazz Magazine: Few young musicians today have the opportunity to travel the way you did.

Davis: Yeah. Back then if you were young and just out of college and you could play, chances are you could fall in Buddy Rich’s band, or Woody Herman’s or Stan Kenton’s band. Or you could go to New York play with Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. When I got the call to play with Ray Charles I had already been gigging around here for a number of years, and I had fallen into a pattern of what we call jobbing––weddings and weekday jazz gigs and so on. And that’s great, but in my early thirties I had this wanderlust. I was lucky––one of Ray’s trumpet players had gotten fired, and a friend of mine got me on. And that led to a lot of world traveling and adventure and meeting people and other musicians. If any of you young musicians out there get a chance to go on the road, if it’s a decent band, take it!

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