Angela Davis one of the winners of the Brian Boak Bursary!
I’m thrilled to announce that I have been awarded one of two prestigious Brian Boak Bursaries. I will use the award to record my second album in September with Dan Tepfer (Piano), Linda Oh (Bass) and Richie Barshay (Drums). Read the article on The Chronicle.
The Jazz Session #425 with Angela Davis
Saxophonist Angela Davis’s debut album is The Art of The Melody (2013). In this interview, Davis talks about her Australian roots; why she’s most interested in the lineage of players such as Lee Konitz, with whom she’s studied; melodic improvisation; and how to approach songs from outside the jazz canon.
http://thejazzsession.com/2013/11/01/the-jazz-session-425-angela-davis/
‘The Art of The Melody’ reviewed in The Australian
Author: John McBeath
From the burgeoning numbers of Australian jazz players based in New York comes a debut album from 27-year-old alto saxophonist Angela Davis, from Toowoomba, Queensland.
Bassist Linda Oh and drummer Rajiv Jayaweera are also from Australia, with pianist Chris Ziemba the only American on this recording. The title is fitting, since the collection is melodic in content and improvisational style. Davis, a student of Lee Konitz, has a beautifully elegant, honeyed alto tone, reminiscent of Paul Desmond.
Three of the nine tracks are originals; the others are varied, from the Scottish traditional Annie Laurie to the gracefully interpreted ballad Crazy She Calls Me and Tom Waits’s Martha – all are tunes of strong, emotive melodies.
The opener, 41. St Nick, is a quick post-bop theme started by piano and alto in unison before the alto solos with just bass and drums, travelling smartly in a supportive groove. After a short piano and bass intro plus the theme from alto, the 1976 Boz Scaggs song We’re All Alone evolves into imaginatively flowing piano from Ziemba, a Juilliard graduate, who injects a swinging feel into his solo, followed by Davis’s lyrical take on the piece with just piano accompaniment.
Oh’s strong bass introduces the original Conscientia, continuing to move and propel under alto and piano solos embellished by Jayaweera’s soft brushes. This is not avant-garde work but it’s a well-played testament to melody with the ghost of Desmond hovering throughout.
LABEL: Nicholas Records
RATING: 3.5 stars
‘The Art of The Melody’ reviewed on All About Jazz
Author: C. Michael Bailey
Saxophonist and All About Jazz contributor Angela Davis has made it official, releasing her debut recording, The Art of The Melody. Davis joins a growing legion of female reeds players that includes Sharel Cassity, Alisha Pattillo, Virginia Mayhew,Claire Daly, and Mercedes Figueras, who are flexing their respective chops in the ravenous particles of digital music.
Concentrating on alto saxophone for this recording, Davis immediately channels the dry ice-and-gin tone established in the early 1950s by the young Art Pepper and Paul Desmond. Her tone is even and narrow, uniformly dense throughout its spectrum. Think of a Bombay Sapphire martini, straight up, with an olive; expand that metaphor, and you get the idea. But that is just her tone. Davis’ choice of repertoire spans some 300 years, between the Scottish folk song “Annie Laurie” and those originals more recently composed.
Davis crosses jazz styles effortlessly, transitioning from her bebop-oriented “41. St Nick” into an adult contemporary acoustic treatment of Boz Scaggs’ “We’re All Alone.” Her band is as style-pliant as she is, featuring noted bassist Linda Oh, whose own Initial Here (Self Produced, 2013) could not be more different than the present recital. All members take Davis’ lead, producing an integrated 1950s-style blowing session in the 21st Century. This music is lean and trim, well conceived from beginning to end. The traditional “Annie Laurie” is given a John Coltrane quartet arrangement, transformed into a modern ballad.
Tom Waits’ “Martha” is organic in presentation, Chris Ziemba’s churchy piano sweeping along Davis’ dry “wounded bird” alto into its melodic flight on this beautiful and neglected song. Yes, Frank Morgan makes his influential appearance in Davis’ pedigree. That tone is continued on Chaplin’s “Smile,” played as a duet between Davis and Oh, a pairing from whom we might want to hear again in the future.
Source: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=44739