Jazz Articles about Jon Davis
Jon Davis: Happy Juice
by David A. Orthmann
Whitney Balliett once wrote, “good musicians do not copy their elders; they only use them as primers." These are words to keep in mind while listening to Jon Davis' Happy Juice, a ten track recital that acknowledges a number of modern jazz piano masters (Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, and Red Garland) in terms of material and methods yet deftly eschews the weight of any single influence. Davis' style is at once pleasurable, mysterious, demanding, ...
read moreJon Davis: Happy Juice
by Dan Bilawsky
Everyone has their own version of happy juice. For some, it's the drink; for others, it's literature; for many, it's film; and for a certain breed, it's jazz, that most potent and unpredictable of aural intoxicants. It's the people that fall into that last group who are most likely to quickly uncork this one and take glee in polishing it off once and again. As pianist Jon Davis sees it, some of the most significant pianistic vintners ...
read moreJon Davis: Changes Over Time
by Blaine Fallis
Jon Davis plays with a richness of soul, exhibiting a well versed jazz character that can go from Jaco (whom he worked with for several years), New Orleans swamp, and freedom jazz dance, to Stevie Wonder, and back. Although he doesn't try to sound like Bill Evans, he did pen a tune called Waltz for U, named for the trio's bassist Ugonna Okegwo who was perhaps tiring of the challenges of playing in so many of Davis' multiple time signatures ...
read moreJon Davis: Changes Over Time
by Dan Bilawsky
While there are no liner notes to accompany pianist Jon Davis' third date for the Posi-Tone imprint, there's a quote inside the package, attributed to author Anne Rice, that gets to the heart of the matter: “None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are." So is personal evolution and growth an illusion? Is development a figment of the individual's imagination? Yes and no would be the correct answer(s). It really just comes down ...
read moreJon Davis: Moving Right Along
by Mark Corroto
Every jazz generation has its own Tommy Flanagan, an unheralded player that finally steps into the spotlight and everyone wonders how he has been hiding in plain sight all these years. With Moving Right Along, a follow up to One Up Front (Posi-Tone, 2013) pianist Jon Davis takes center stage with an assured sense of swing and a sumptuous way with a jazz vocabulary.As a sideman, he has held the piano chair in bands led by jazz fusion ...
read moreJon Davis: One Up Front
by Dan Bilawsky
It's tempting to say that pianist Jon Davis has been hiding in plain sight for the past few decades, but he hasn't really been hiding at all. He's actually been playing all over the place with a lot of top-tier musicians; he just doesn't put himself up front very often. Davis, who's worked with saxophonist Stan Getz, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Jaco Pastorius, and a long list of other jazz luminaries, is the consummate sideman, always adding support and substance ...
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