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Kenny Davis: Kenny Davis

By John Kelman
February 9, 2010
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He's had an illustrious career since moving to New York in the mid-1980s and hitching a gig with drummer

Ralph Peterson

drums
1962 - 2021

" data-original-title="" title="">Ralph Peterson Jr. and contemporary mainstreamers Out of the Blue (OTB), but he's waited until now to release an album under his own name. An impressive résumé includes work with M-Base collective saxophonist

Steve Coleman

saxophone, alto
b.1956

" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Coleman's Five Elements; performing—and, on one song, arranging—credits on singer

Cassandra Wilson

vocals
b.1955

" data-original-title="" title="">Cassandra Wilson's Grammy Award-winning Blue Light 'Til Dawn (Blue Note, 1993); and subsequent work with artists ranging from

Art Farmer

flugelhorn
1928 - 1999

" data-original-title="" title="">Art Farmer and

Robin Eubanks

trombone
b.1955

" data-original-title="" title="">Robin Eubanks to

Don Byron

clarinet
b.1958

" data-original-title="" title="">Don Byron and

Onaje Allan Gumbs

piano
1949 - 2020

" data-original-title="" title="">Onaje Allan Gumbs. All this and more contributes to the unerring success of Kenny Davis.

At a time when many artists are distancing themselves from the American tradition, Kenny Davis remains reverential yet unmistakably modern. Davis—focusing on double-bass with a robust tone and deep, flexible sense of time rooted in bass icons like

Paul Chambers

bass, acoustic
1935 - 1969

" data-original-title="" title="">Paul Chambers and

Ron Carter

bass
b.1937

" data-original-title="" title="">Ron Carter—contributes all but two of the album's 14 tracks, but his approach to the cover material is equally personal.

Stevie Wonder

vocals
b.1950

" data-original-title="" title="">Stevie Wonder's "Too High" opens with a thematically virtuosic yet effervescently swinging bass solo that, bolstered by drummer

Billy Kilson

drums
b.1962

" data-original-title="" title="">Billy Kilson's ever-empathic interaction, pushes the bar even higher than that set by the duo's fiery opening salvo, "1st Arrival." But Davis goes even further here, with an arrangement that manages to turn Wonder's already knotty tune into even greater intricacy, all the while swinging at a fast clip that challenges pianist

Geri Allen

piano
1957 - 2017

" data-original-title="" title="">Geri Allen and saxophonist

Javon Jackson

saxophone
b.1965

" data-original-title="" title="">Javon Jackson to keep up...which, of course, they do. Walter Gross' enduring "Tenderly" is taken at a more relaxed pace, but grooves no less viscerally, with a particularly potent solo from Davis' ex-OTB band mate, saxophonist

Ralph Bowen

saxophone

" data-original-title="" title="">Ralph Bowen.

Davis' own writing is equally compelling, and demonstrates a broad scope. "Fearless" begins with an 11/8 vamp and serpentine head yet, with Allen playing counterpoint to Bowen and guitarist

David Gilmore

guitar

" data-original-title="" title="">David Gilmore's winding theme, it's another cooker when it gets to the solos, with the saxophonist and guitarist finding their way through Davis' sophisticated changes, anchored by the muscular rhythm team of Davis and drummer Ralph Peterson.

Onaje Allan Gumbs—also the album's producer—replaces Allen on two tracks: the balladic "Wrapped in Love," and brief closer, "Gone Too Soon"—an even more poignant duet that shines a spotlight on Davis' lyrically fragile arco. Recorded as a single piece, the ostinato-driven "Journey" is broken into three interludes that— peppered throughout the disc and only gradually revealing their full thematic strength—act as a unifying drawstring, creating an arc across the CD that, by its third iteration, finds bass clarinetist Don Byron and trumpeter

Eddie Allen

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Eddie Allen's orbiting economically around each other.

It's hard to call Kenny Davis a debut when the bassist has appeared on so many significant recordings. Still, focusing as it does on his inimitable excellence as a performer and equally compelling compositional skills, Kenny Davis is the first release to make so crystal clear how this established but, in some ways, still emerging, deserves to be watched.

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Track Listing

1st Arrival; Fearless; Deliverance; Too High; Journey (Interlude #1); Elviry; Tenderly; Wrapped in Love; Journey (Interlude #2); Altitude; Before Sunrise; What Lies Beyond; Journey (Interlude #3); Gone Too Soon.

Personnel

Kenny Davis

bass

Kenny Davis: bass; Billy Kilson: drums (1, 4-10, 12, 13); Ralph Bowen: tenor saxophone (2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13); David Gilmore: guitar (2); Geri Allen: piano (2-7, 9, 12, 13); Ralph Peterson, Jr.: drums (2, 3); Javon Jackson: tenor saxophone (3, 4); Onaje Allan Gumbs: piano (8, 14); Don Byron: clarinet and bass clarinet (9, 12, 13); Eddie Alan: trumpet (3, 12).

Album information

Title: Kenny Davis | Year Released: 2010 | Record Label: Self Produced

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