Wild Bill Davis

Wild Bill Davis Midnight To Dawn (RCA 1967)

- Francois Leave a comment

Wild Bill, already seated behind the Hammond organ for approximately 25 years by 1967, is in top form.

Personnel

Wild Bill Davis (organ), Clayton Robert Brown (tenor saxophone), Dickie Thompson (guitar), Bobby Durham (drums)

Recorded

in 1967 at Grace’s Little Belmont, Atlantic City

Released

as RCA-3799 in 1967

Track listing

Side A: Let It Be / Soft Winds / Adoration / Little Tracy / Up Top / Side B: Manha De Carnaval / Cute / Summertime / Jive Samba / Straight No Chaser / Closing Theme: April In Paris

We’re writing 1967. William Stretchen Davis, a.k.a. Wild Bill Davis, born in Glasgow, Missouri, has come a long way. To the top, no less. Playing guitar at the start, he traveled to Chicago in the late 1930’s and was associated with Milt Larkin and Earl Hines. Two endeavors place him in the front ranks of music history. Davis was the pianist and arranger of the Louis Jordan band from 1945 to 1949. Singer and alto saxophonist Louis Jordan was the enormously popular pioneer of r&b and rock&roll. As such, Wild Bill played a big part in that development. Furthermore, Davis arranged April In Paris for Count Basie in 1955, a tremendous hit record.

Make that three. Settling on the East Coast in the early 1950’s, Davis focused exclusively on the organ. Coming out of the swing era, Davis approached the organ as a big ensemble. He used wide dynamic ranges, continually changing sound registrations and broad and layered harmonies which were directly derived from the five-part Kansas City saxophone sections. Ultimately, his trademark features as long suspended notes and the heavy vibration of the Leslie speaker would be picked up by the modernists, led by front-runner Jimmy Smith. Davis played the bass pedals with his left foot, which obviated the need for the service of the upright bass player. All this amounted to the invention of the organ trio format: organ, guitar and drums. It was subject to variation, duo, (added) saxophone, but the crux was a non-solo, bass-less, interactive group.

His classic group consisted of guitarist Floyd Smith (preceded shortly by Bill Jennings) and drummer Christopher Colombus, also a Louis Jordan-alumnus. Davis recorded singles on Okeh in the early 1950’s and his first long-playing records on Epic in the mid-fifties. The best-known is At Birdland, a live album at the famed ‘jazz corner of the world’ in New York City and a summary of the Davis aesthetic up to that point. A popular performer and recording artist, Davis would record on Imperial, Everest and Verve in the 1960’s.

A number of those were live albums. Besides At Birdland, there’s Live At Count Basie’s and Wild Bill And Johnny Hodges In Atlantic City on RCA from 1966, Wild Bill And Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis Live! Volume 1 & 2 on Black & Blue from 1976 and Wild Bill Davis Super Trio: That’s All featuring Plas Johnson on Jazz Connaisseur from 1990.

Finally, there’s Midnight To Dawn from 1967, also released on RCA. Marketing-wise, releasing three live albums in a period of less than two years is unusual, unfruitful one would think, but we’re better for it. At this time, in contrast with At Birdland, which was a one-way street of mid-and up-tempo swing tunes, Davis, although somewhat a dinosaur among the young lions of organ jazz by then, had progressed into a varied performer. A performer that usually stretched out and played long arrangements, but for the sake of the LP format resorted to concise tunes. Wouldn’t mind listening to one of those trademark long gigs. Perhaps a task for the jazz detectives of the contemporary flood of archival releases.

Midnight To Dawn’s got a lot going for it. Davis kicks off with Let It Be, a stately and funky gospel tune written by Davis and tenor saxophonist Clayton Robert Brown, a sermon that has the congregation stompin’ and screamin’ down the aisle. And, at the dawn’s surly light, he ends with Monk’s Straight No Chaser, a rousing climax underpinned by Davis’s subtle accompaniment and effective lines on the bass pedals.

In between, Davis, usually building up his dynamic swing stories, occasionally igniting sassy single lines, Brown, growling like Ben Webster on tenor sax, flexibly switching to flute, Dicky Thompson, mixing greasy licks and octaves on guitar, Bobby Durham, solid on drums, together alternate good grooves like Soft Winds with a lovely ballad, Davis/Brown’s Adoration, not to mention Wynton Kelly’s lively calypso Little Tracy.

Cannonball Adderley’s Jive Samba is a gas. Davis, a fan of the Adderley’s, had recorded the Bobby Timmons-written Adderley hit This Here on Dis Heah (This Here) earlier in 1961, a good record.

Midnight To Dawn is very good and exciting, a prime example of where Wild Bill was at.

Listen to Midnight To Dawn on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6JR24F8AQ0&list=OLAK5uy_nTzqOfwQh6laR0XLdt-55EFQo8BmXjYVM&index=2

Wild BIll Davis - Marciac
Wild Bill Davis - At Birdland
Wild Bill Davis - Dis Heah

Arnett Cobb Blow Arnett, Blow (Prestige 1959)

- Francois Leave a comment

Tough tenors Arnett Cobb and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis team up for a thoroughly swinging session. Blow Arnett, Blow confirmed Cobb’s return to the scene after the tenor saxophonist’s long recovery of his car accident in 1956.

Arnett Cobb - Blow Arnett, Blow

Personnel

Arnett Cobb (tenor saxophone), Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis (tenor saxophone), Wild Bill Davis (organ), George Duvivier (bass), Arthur Edgehill (drums)

Recorded

on January 9, 1959 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey

Released

as PRLP 7151 in 1959

Track listing

Side A:
When I Grow To Old To Dream
Go Power
Side B:
Go Red Go
The Eely One
The Fluke


Everybody who was present at Arnett Cobb’s performance at club Porgy & Bess in my hometown of Terneuzen, The Netherlands in 1986 is still talking about it. I’m told that many are walking around with goosebumps even now. It was an emotional evening. It was well-known that Cobb, on crutches, had been enduring severe pains throughout his life. Nonetheless, the good-natured Cobb blew the roof of the building. The club badly needed a renovation anyway.

Surely this was typical for clubs and audiences around the world. Cobb is always smiling broadly on album covers. And he was always ready to blow. Highly unlikely that the big-toned tenor saxophonist needed encouragement. So the title of the album may be superfluous, but it definitely was a bright idea from Prestige producer Esmond Edwards to couple Cobb with fellow tough tenorist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. Bright and anybody’s guess, since Cobb hadn’t played for a few years, but it turned out to be a sparkling affair.

Arnett Cobb, from Houston, Texas, first gained recognition in Milt Larkin’s orchestra. Also in the reed chair were fellow Texans Illinois Jacquet and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson. Following up Illinois Jacquet in Lionel Hampton’s orchestra, with Jacquet having provided a spectacular, successful and iconic solo in Flying Home, was quite a challenge but Cobb was a mainstay and the succes of the years between 1942 and 1947 of the Hampton band was unprecedented. Cobb’s career as a leader after leaving Hampton was unfortunately hampered by spinal pains and surgery in 1950. Cobb did write the music and lyrics of Smooth Sailin’ in 1951, which became a big hit for Ella Fitzgerald and which would be the title and title song of the follow-up album to Blow Arnett Blow. Despite the setback, Cobb’s group became very popular, particularly in the Mid-Western ‘chitlin’ circuit’ of clubs in the black community. Like other saxophonists who had come up through the swing bands, Cobb had formed a seven-piece band with a four-piece rhythm section including guitar, modeled after the groups of r&b pioneer Louis Jordan, Bull Moose Jackson and Wynonie Harris.

In 1956, Cobb was involved in a car accident. His legs were crushed. He was in and out of the hospital for nearly three years and needed crutches for the rest of his life. Regardless of his shortcomings, Cobb toured extensively in Europe in the seventies and eighties, to much acclaim. Cobb passed away in 1989.

Ever heard a bigger sound than that of Arnett Cobb? It’s huge. His stomping, meaty style lifts up from the ground When I Grow To Old To Dream and mid-tempo blues riffs like Go Red Go and The Fluke. The uptempo showstopper Go Power is the standout track. Cobb puts your back against the wall, barking, swinging, wailing with short, rotund notes. He’s a tireless boxer hitting the sack. His old buddy from the Milt Larkin band, influential organist Wild Bill Davis, chimes in with his typical orchestral voicings and lines, seemingly unaffected by the modern organ revolution of Jimmy Smith. The unique phrasing, the continuity of surprising ideas and wit of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis never fails to arouse spirits. More than a battle, the two commanding tenor saxophonists are involved in a playful wrestle match.

During the years of 1959/60, Cobb recorded seven albums for Prestige, some of which contained interesting pairings with pianists Bobby Timmons and Red Garland. It was the most fruitful period of Cobb’s career.