Time: 57:15
Size: 131.1 MB
Styles: Mainstream jazz
Year: 2009
Art: Front
[1:19] 1. 1st Arrival
[5:27] 2. Fearless
[5:48] 3. Deliverance
[3:59] 4. Too High
[0:29] 5. Journey (Interlude 1)
[6:28] 6. Elviry
[6:11] 7. Tenderly
[6:10] 8. Wrapped In Love
[0:46] 9. Journey (Interlude 2)
[4:51] 10. Attitude
[3:08] 11. Before Sunrise
[7:19] 12. What Lies Beyond
[1:26] 13. Journey (Interlude 3)
[3:47] 14. Gone Too Soon
Master jazz bassist Ron Carter who did the liner notes for the CD stated: "To all listeners of wonderful music, don't pass this CD by!!!
He's had an illustrious career since moving to New York in the mid-1980s and hitching a gig with drummer 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's Five Elements; performing—and, on one song, arranging—credits on singer Cassandra Wilson's Grammy Award-winning Blue Light 'Til Dawn (Blue Note, 1993); and subsequent work with artists ranging from Art Farmer and Robin Eubanks to Don Byron and 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 and Ron Carter—contributes all but two of the album's 14 tracks, but his approach to the cover material is equally personal. Stevie Wonder's "Too High" opens with a thematically virtuosic yet effervescently swinging bass solo that, bolstered by drummer 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 and saxophonist 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.
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
'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.
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. ~John Kelman
He's had an illustrious career since moving to New York in the mid-1980s and hitching a gig with drummer 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's Five Elements; performing—and, on one song, arranging—credits on singer Cassandra Wilson's Grammy Award-winning Blue Light 'Til Dawn (Blue Note, 1993); and subsequent work with artists ranging from Art Farmer and Robin Eubanks to Don Byron and 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 and Ron Carter—contributes all but two of the album's 14 tracks, but his approach to the cover material is equally personal. Stevie Wonder's "Too High" opens with a thematically virtuosic yet effervescently swinging bass solo that, bolstered by drummer 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 and saxophonist 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.
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
'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.
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. ~John Kelman
Kenny Davis
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