Re: R.I.P. Richard Davis

A long and distinguished career that found him playing with so many of the pre-eminent jazz artists of the past 60 or 7o years, he can be heard on Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch!, Andrew Hill's Point of Departure, David Murray's The Hill and Sarah Vaughan's Swingin' Easy (all great albums, all personal favorites) among many, many others.

He was also in constant demand as a session musician and appeared on many records outside of jazz, including key albums in Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Kate & Anna McGarrigle's careers. He's likely best known for Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, but he was never really impressed by it, pointing out that they had very little prep or barely heard from Morrison about what to play. Morrison's original bassist (who producer Lewis Merenstein replaced with Davis) even claims he already gave all of Morrison's songs bass parts and that Davis simply embellished on them. Regardless, even if he had skipped those dates, there's no shortage of classics in his discography.

His daughter has set up an online memorial here:

[memorialsource.com]

Ouch. I hadn't heard that he died. That hurts.

I don't know his work at all but I have all the Springsteen, Simon, and McGarrigle records mentioned. Good stuff, hadn't known of his role previously. Thanks for sharing.

Ouch. I hadn't heard that he died. That hurts.

I didn't realize he'd died, either. A legend.

Those Dolphy and Hill records you cite are both jazz landmarks. If those were the only two things Davis had done, he'd still be one of the greats. Fortunately for us, he had a prolific career.