Just Released: Intimate 2008 Session Recording 'Steve Davis Meets Hank Jones, Vol. 2' Featuring Trombonist Steve Davis, Bassist Peter Washington, And Pianist Hank Jones

Steve Davis Meets Hank Jones, Volume 2 (Smoke Sessions Records), Out October 16, Features Thrilling Music from an Intimate 2008 Recording Session with Davis, Jones, and Bass Great Peter Washington

When trombonist Steve Davis, bassist Peter Washington, and the legendary pianist Hank Jones (1918-2010) entered the studio in June of 2008, it was with anything but the grandest of intentions. It was a month prior to Jones’s 90th birthday, and just a year and a half since he had undergone quadruple bypass surgery. He passed away less than two years later.

None of that diminished the magic of which Jones was capable, however. It took 15 years before any of the music from that session finally saw the light of day, but the release of Steve Davis Meets Hank Jones, Volume 1 (2023) met with a rapturous reception. The Times of London called it, “an unexpected treat… one of [Jones’s] best in a superlative career,” while All About Jazz hailed it as, “a glorious late addition to the Jones discography and a reminder of Davis's massive abilities.”

For Davis, the recording remains one of the experiences that he most cherishes. “It was such a special day,” he exults. “As soon as it was over, I felt confident that it was some of the best music I would ever be a part of in my life. I sure am proud of it.”

Fortunately, there was more where that came from. Nearly two decades after it was recorded, the remainder of that scintillating session will be unveiled on October 16, 2026, via Smoke Sessions Records. Where its predecessor focused largely on ballads, Steve Davis Meets Hank Jones, Volume 2 is a more celebratory, up-tempo affair, a vibrant and joyously swinging meeting between three master musicians who clearly enjoy, embrace, and are vigorously inspired by each other’s company. The original session was spontaneous and intimate, the result of an offhand remark made by Jones at the tail end of the 2007 session for Davis’s sextet album Eloquence.

“After the Eloquence date, I thanked Hank profusely,” Davis recalls. “We were shaking hands, and he said, ‘Why Stevie, we've had so much fun, I think perhaps we ought to do it again.’”

Davis has never been one to let a suggestion like that go without seizing the opportunity, especially coming from one of his musical heroes, with whom he’d just enjoyed a brilliant recording date. In less than a year, the details were ironed out and the two reconvened, this time with Peter Washington to complete the stripped-down trio.

As Davis describes it, “I wanted the session to feel like an evening at Bradley's, as if Peter was playing duo with Hank Jones and I'm sitting in. Just keep it intimate and simple.”

The suggestion of Bradley’s, the beloved, much-missed Greenwich Village jazz club and hang, is an apt one. Not just because it was the setting for so many captivating musical conversations along the lines of this inter-generational meeting, but because it was the setting for so many of Davis’s own formative musical experiences.

“I went into this thinking about all the great piano-based duos I witnessed at Bradley's,” he says. “The club was located on University Place in New York City, and it was a university of music that you could attend after hours, when your own gig was done. I heard Hank Jones play there many times, along with all the other great pianists of the era.”

Washington was already one of the most respected bassists in jazz at the time. While he had toured extensively with Jones, the two had never recorded together, which made the prospect all the more enticing for Davis. “Pete Wash was the perfect choice,” the trombonist insists. “At that point he’d already recorded with just about everybody in jazz, but he hadn’t made a record with Hank yet, so it was a thrill for both of us. For me, it was an honor to have such an incredible tandem to play with.”

For many years after, and for a variety of reasons, Davis feared that the remarkable music captured that day would never be released. He kept a burned CD of the proceedings in his car for over a decade, a constant reminder of a beautiful collaboration. “That thing would sit in the glove compartment of my car, and I would dig it out when I drove from Hartford to New York. There was a long period of time that I thought, ‘Man, maybe I'm the only one who's ever going to hear this.’ I'm so grateful to Smoke Sessions for putting in the work to resurrect it.”

Once jazz aficionados have a chance to listen, he won’t be the only one. From the bracing unison opening of Charlie Parker’s “Au Privave” to the sprightly alternate take of the Rodgers and Hart classic “I Could Write a Book,” the album is a pure delight full of breathtaking interplay. Witness Jones’s keen-edged ferocity on Miles Davis’s “Nardis,” Washington’s bold bass swagger on “Invitation” – the line a suggestion from Davis, who borrowed it from Rene McLean—or Davis’s tender melodic touch on “The Nearness of You.”

“It’s very meaningful and gratifying to see this music come out,” Davis concludes. “It was such a special moment. To me, this is cherished, sacred music.”

Steve Davis Meets Hank Jones, Volume Two was produced by Paul Stache and Damon Smith and was recorded on June 17, 2008, at JLP Studio in South Orange, New Jersey. Available on limited edition LP andaudiophile HD formats.