Primary Instrument: Sax, alto
Davey Yarborough is a native of Washington, DC who has been wowing audiences for twenty years. He is a fine flautist and saxophonist as well as a distinguished composer, arranger, bandleader, and teacher.
After formal training from UDC and Howard, he studied with flute master, Frank Weiss, and saxophone with the great Sonny Stitt. These intensive and challenging have served him well not only as a performer but as a composer and teacher.
Throughout his career he has performed with some of the greatest stars in the jazz constellation: Dizzy Gillespie, Lena Horne, Clark Terry, Jimmy Weatherspoon, and Joe Williams. In addition top his own quartet, he has appeared in several collaborations including “Eternal Equinox” with Joe Harris, Hilton Felton, and Nasar Abadey, as well as “Covington-Seals-Yarborough” w/ Charles Covington, Richard Seals, and Davey.
His versatility as a performer, composer and arranger propelled him to such interesting projects as creating and performing the background music for “The Cosby Show,” writing the musical soundtrack for the movie “Uptown Angel,” and writing and arranging a musical tribute to Sonny Stitt and John Malachi. Besides playing at clubs and concert halls, Yarborough has alos playe at major jazz festivals including the East Coast Jazz Festival and the Blues/Jazz festival of San Remo, Italy.
Yarborough is helping to shape a whole new generation of exciting jazz performers through his dedicated and inspiring work as a distinguished teacher at the Duke Ellington School for the Arts in Washington, DC. He not only teaches saxophone but also serves as the Coordinator for Jazz Studies and directs the Jazz Orchestra.
