Collection: Walter Davis Jr.
Born in Richmond, Virginia on 2 September 1932, Walter Davis Jr. became an exceptional hard bop and bebop pianist known for his commanding, percussive style and inventive compositions. Raised in East Orange, New Jersey in a musical family with a gospel-singing mother and father and uncles who played church and stride piano, Davis was a gifted classical pianist before hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the Billy Eckstine big band changed his life. In 1949, aged 17, he played his first gig with Bird at the Apollo, impressing Parker so much that he asked Davis's mother if he could take him on tour. Mentored by Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, Davis moved to New York in the early 1950s, recording with Max Roach in 1953 and joining Dizzy Gillespie's band in 1956, touring the Middle East and South America.
His debut album as leader, Davis Cup, was recorded on 2 August 1959 at Rudy Van Gelder's newly constructed Englewood Cliffs studio, the first album recorded there, featuring Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, Sam Jones, and Art Taylor on six Davis originals. That same year he joined Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, beginning a long relationship with Blakey who loved Davis's compositions and recorded many of them, including "Uranus", "Backgammon", "Jodi", "Gypsy Folk Tales", and "Scorpio Rising". In the 1960s Davis retired from music to work as a tailor, painter, and designer, marrying songwriter Mayme Watts, but returned in the late 1960s and 1970s, playing with Sonny Rollins and rejoining the Jazz Messengers in 1975. He contributed to the Clint Eastwood film Bird (1988) soundtrack and had a role on CBS television's Frank's Place. Davis died in New York City on 2 June 1990, aged 57.
