Will Davis
piano (Detroit)
Will Davis was a Detroit pianist of Barry’s youth, one of the local players Barry watched and learned from and said played better than he did; in a class on Giant Steps Barry played the ending Davis used to put on songs.
- mentions
- 6
- recordings
- 5
- Barry speaking
- 6
What Barry says
Barry learned from Tommy Flanagan, but he names Will Davis as another Detroit pianist he learned from, followed by Willie Anderson. He urges listeners to look Will Davis up: he made an album, and Barry says to listen to it.
Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle5:43
Asked which musicians affected him, Barry says Tommy Flanagan, Terry Pollard and Will Davis all played better than he did, so he watched them. As with Flanagan, he learned from Davis by taking what he saw home and practising it.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶143Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶646
In high school Barry and Berry Gordy were the boogie-woogie pianists, until Theodore Shieldy came to town, playing better boogie-woogie and able to improvise too. Will Davis could also improvise, at a time when Barry could chord but not yet solo well.
Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶65Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶7
Barry counts Will Davis among the ‘unknowns at home’, the local players whose names nobody will ever know but who shape you most. If he says he was influenced by Will Davis, people will ask who that is.
Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶665Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶646Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶28
Asked whether he was aware of a Detroit sound, Barry says he was not, though he has heard people say so. He hears a similarity between Tommy Flanagan’s sound and Hank Jones’s, and puts it down to coming from Will Davis and other players who could play, so they learned to play right.
Interview: Detroit and after7:318:07Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶629
Barry says Will Davis was entirely different from Flanagan and Pollard. Davis had an ending he played at the close of a ballad, and Barry says that ending was Giant Steps. In a class on Giant Steps he plays how Davis used to end songs, calling it the same thing.
Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Student Interviews After Concert10:06Giant Steps in the piano class13:30An introduction to Giant Steps13:46
Listing Detroit’s many pianists when Tommy Flanagan’s move to New York comes up, Barry names Will Davis, Boo-Boo Turner, Abe Woodley, who also played vibes, and Theodore Shieldy.
In his own words
Whenever you get a chance, Man, you look up Will Davis, and he’s got, he’s got an album and you listen to that.
Tommy Flannigan played better. Terry Pollard played better, Will Davis played better than me, so I watched them.
Will Davis, he was entirely different, you know. He used to have an ending that he would play, and his ending that he would play at the end of a [ballad] was Giant Steps.
I might say influenced by Will Davis, and you might say, “Who the hell is Will Davis?” There was a Will Davis... a piano player.
So we got Theodore Shieldy, we had Will Davis. All these cats could improvise.
Every mention
6 moments in the recordings, 6 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle
- 5:43
Another pianist he learned from besides Flanagan; urges listeners to find Davis’s album.
Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Student Interviews After Concert
- 10:06
Davis was entirely different; his ballad ending was the Giant Steps progression.
Giant Steps in the piano class
- 13:30
In a Giant Steps class, plays how Detroit pianist Will Davis used to end songs.
An introduction to Giant Steps
- 13:46
The same Giant Steps class, in another upload.
Interview: Detroit and after
In the interviews and notes
Asked who affected him when young, Barry names Tommy Flanagan, Terry Pollard and Will Davis as players who were better than him, so he watched them.
Explaining why Detroit produced so many musicians, Barry points to music in the schools and to good players around, naming Willie Anderson, Will Davis and the alto player Cokie, who sounded like Bird to them.
Barry recalls the high school boogie-woogie pianists, then Theodore Shieldy and Will Davis, who could improvise. He learned by standing behind pianists at dances, taking a couple of chords home and practising them.
Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶65Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶7
Barry lists Detroit’s many pianists of the time: Will Davis, Boo-Boo Turner, Abe Woodley, who also played vibes, and Theodore Shieldy.
Naming his mentors, Barry calls Kenny Burrell and Tommy Flanagan the best of the young players, then turns to ones nobody has heard of, Will Davis among them. He watched Flanagan’s chords at dances and practised them in every key, and says he learned from Davis the same way.
Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶646Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1307Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1313
Besides Bird, Diz, Bud, Hawkins and Prez, Barry says the little-known players back home are what really forms a musician, and he gives Will Davis, a pianist, as his example.
Barry says he was not aware of a Detroit sound but hears something shared by Tommy Flanagan and Hank Jones, which he ties to coming from Will Davis and other good local players; he adds that he tries to get away from it.
Flanagan remembers Detroit having many pianists, not all of them beboppers; some came from the Art Tatum school. He calls Will Davis a dynamic type of pianist.
Ted Panken (interviewer); Tommy Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan ¶14
De Lima argues that Detroit players Barry heard in his teens, Will Davis among them, shaped him strongly, and that earlier writers on Barry’s method failed to say so.
Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1301Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶632
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.