A native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Davis began his musical studies on piano and tuba. After switching to bass, he played in the Harrisburg Symphony while still in high school. He later attended the Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard, studying with bassist Anselme Fortier as well as cellist Laslo Varga. As a result of his training, Davis held his bass in front of him, cello-style, and used a four-finger left-hand technique.

Unable to land a symphony job after leaving school, Davis returned to Harrisburg to play jazz gigs. He also frequented Philadelphia’s jazz clubs, sitting in with drummer Max Roach’s band one night when Roach’s bass player failed to return after intermission. Davis went on to work with Roach and with Dizzy Gillespie, and in 1958 began a creative partnership with Coltrane. He also landed freelance symphony and studio jobs, helping break the color barrier for lucrative TV work when he and trumpeter Clark Terry were hired for the NBC studio orchestra.

Davis’s work with Coltrane included experiments with a two-bass rhythm section; the sometimes-startling results can be heard on the title track to 1961’s Olé Coltrane. Over Reggie Workman’s bass ostinato, Davis vamps freely on a high-register pentatonic figure and adds bowed outbursts and eerie harmonics before he and Workman engage in an arco duel.

Coltrane’s intense performances were like a “cleansing,” Davis told Bass Player in October ’92. “John gave his all. After the first set, he was often exhausted, but we would still go on. It was hard, but at the end you felt so good.”

After Coltrane’s death in 1967, Davis went back to school, supporting himself by playing Broadway shows while earning a doctorate in clinical psychology. His subsequent career included university positions, a private psychology practice, and work with emotionally disturbed high school students. He also continued to record and perform, producing his signature booming low register and percussive, classical-style pizzicato on his John F. Lott and Gagliano basses.

Never shy about his accomplishments, Davis was particularly proud of his work in education and his non-profit scholarship foundation, BASS (Better Advantages for Students and Society). “I tell my students to keep an open mind,” he said. “And I encourage people to develop their individuality. You’ve got to imitate what you hear and then go from there."

Art Davis Essentials

As A Leader
A Time Remembered, Jazz Planet
Life, Soul Note
Reemergence, Interplay

With Art Blakey
A Jazz Message, Impulse

With John Coltrane
Ascension, Impulse
The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions, Impulse
Olé Coltrane, Atlantic

With Freddie Hubbard
Artistry of Freddie Hubbard, Impulse

With Booker Little
Booker Little 4 & Max Roach, Blue Note

With Max Roach
The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan, Atlantic