Backgrounder: Walter Davis Jr. - 'Davis Cup' (1959)

Walter Davis Jr. was an exceptional hard bop pianist and composer. He was commanding and percussive, similar in this regard to Horace Silver. As a leader, Davis made a bunch of terrific albums for Blue Note, and one of his best was his first—Davis Cup.

The album was recorded on August 2, 1959. The reason I include the date here is because Davis Cup was the first full album to be recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's newly constructed studio in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Rudy's previous recordings were engineered at his parents' house in nearby Hackensack. Two tracks for Blue Note's Ike Quebec Quintet were recorded in Englewood Cliffs 12 days earlier—on July 20.

Davis Cup features a sterling mix of musicians: Donald Byrd (tp), Jackie McLean (as), Walter Davis, Jr. (p), Sam Jones (b) and Art Taylor (d). What I love most about this album, beyond Davis's piano, is the sourness of McLean's alto combined with the bouncy quality of Byrd's trumpet. McLean had a richly impatient tone, and Byrd's horn was meditative with a blaring quality up on top. Jones and Taylor fed the scurrying quality of the two frontmen.

Here's Walter Davis Jr.'s Davis Cup in full, without ad interruptions...