Richard Davis
Astral bassist BORN 1930
HE WAS a double bassist because as a shy young man he gravitated to the background. Yet few can have played on so many great recordings as Richard Davis. Most famously, in 1968 he was the de facto bandleader on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, voted silver between Pet Sounds and Revolver in MOJO’s 1995 writers’ poll of the greatest albums of all time. It was just one of 16 LPs he played on released that year, following his first rock session, The Rascals’ Once Upon A Dream.
He subsequently did many more, including albums by Laura Nyro, the McGarrigles, Bo Diddley, Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley and, most successfully, Paul Simon (There Goes Rhymin’ Simon) and Bruce Springsteen (Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ and Born To Run).
Though he later played under the batons of Igor Stravinsky and Leonard Bernstein, racism blocked his early ambitions. “I was 18 years old and could play any and all European classical music,” he said in 2005, “but you weren’t allowed to participate in the symphony orchestra because there were racial issues and prejudices.”
Cutting his professional teeth with Sonny Blount (AKA Sun Ra), Ahmad Jamal and Don Shirley, five years accompanying Sarah Vaughan inspired a bowing technique which imitated her singing voice. Among over 600 album credits, including 30 as leader or co-leader, a highlight of highlights is Eric Dolphy’s 1964 classic Out To Lunch!, though his voice as a bassist is perhaps most expansive accompanying pianist John Hicks on 2001’s The Bassist: Homage To Diversity and vibraphonist Walt Dickerson on Divine Gemini and Tenderness, both recorded in 1977. Forever grateful for his own youthful musical education, as a professor of music and music history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison he inspired new generations with his knowledge not just of music, but of life.