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Angela Davis

Based in New York City since January 2010, Angela Davis was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. She started playing the saxophone at age nine, performed in her high school’s jazz band and toured Australia with The Jazz Ed Big Band which performed and recorded with saxophonist Don Burrows, one of Australia’s leading jazz artists. While still in high school Davis also earned an Associate of Music diploma in classical saxophone from the Australian Music Examinations Board. Davis received a Bachelor of Music with first class honors in 2006 from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and while there toured Australia and recorded with The Con Artists, a big band led by trumpeter John Hoffman a veteran of big bands led by Glen Miller, Buddy Rich and Woody Herman. In July 2006 she attended the Manhattan School of Music Summer workshop in Amsterdam where she studied with Dick Oatts, Gary Dial and Michael Abene. In September 2008 she moved to Philadelphia to study at the University of the Arts from which she received her Masters of Music in 2009. In May of 2013 Davis released her debut album, The Art Of the Melody, to rave reviews through the USA and Australia in publications such as the New York City Jazz Record and The Weekend Australian. The CD spent 4 weeks on the JazzWeek Top-50 Jazz Album Chart reaching a peak position of #37 and a total of 7 weeks in the JazzWeek Top-100. The CD spent four weeks on the CMJ charts, was the #2 jazz add during its add week and reached a peak position of #9. As a band leader, Davis has been featured in the Emerging Artists Series at the Bar Next Door in New York and has also performed at The Kitano, Tomi Jazz, Somethin' Jazz Club and other venues in the city. She has appeared in Australia and the U.S. at the Melbourne Women's International Jazz Festival, Noosa Jazz Festival, Villanova Jazz Festival, Mainline Jazz Festival, Sunshine Coast Jazz Festival, Valley Jazz Festival and Bangalow Jazz Festival among other events. Davis has also performed and recorded as a sideman with Kevin Hunt, Jim Pugh, James Morrison, Graeme Lyall, John Hoffman, Kristin Berardi, Steve Newcomb, Joe Chindamo, Chris Ziemba, the Cecilia Coleman Big Band, the Lars Halle Jazz Orchestra and the American Jazz Repertory Orchestra under the direction of Clem Derosa

Awards

2014 Brian Boak Outstand Performer Bursary.


Tags

12
Album Review

Angela Davis Quartet + Strings: Lady Luck

Read "Lady Luck" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Saxophonist and one-time All About Jazz contributor Angela Davis' sophomore effort, Lady Luck shows a young artist evolving naturally and not afraid to take stylistic chances. On her debut recording, The Art of the Melody (Self Produced, 2013), Davis demonstrated an intelligent precociousness that paid off well in both her original compositions and those she covers. Inspired was her inclusion of Tom Waits' “Martha" and Boz Scaggs' “We're All Alone." Just as inspired, on the present Lady ...

13
Album Review

Angela Davis: The Art of The Melody

Read "The Art of The Melody" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Saxophonist and All About Jazz contributor Angela Davis has made it official, releasing her debut recording, The Art of The Melody. Davis joins a growing legion of female reeds players that includes Sharel Cassity, Alisha Pattillo, Virginia Mayhew, Claire Daly, and Mercedes Figueras, who are flexing their respective chops in the ravenous particles of digital music.Concentrating on alto saxophone for this recording, Davis immediately channels the dry ice-and-gin tone established in the early 1950s by the young Art ...

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144

Recording

Angela Davis, Max Roach Inspire Paula Hackett's Jazz Poetry CD

Angela Davis, Max Roach Inspire Paula Hackett's Jazz Poetry CD

Source: All About Jazz

ANGELA DAVIS, MAX ROACH INSPIRE PAULA HACKETT'S POETRY - CD RELEASE: Poetry by Paula Hackett piano improvisation by Rudi Wongozi Born into a Berkeley family of five published writers, Paula Hackett studied poetry with luminaries such as Angela Davis, John Beecher and Grover Sales at San Francisco State University. In the early 1980's, saxophonist and Mingus sideman John Handy read some of Paula's poetry and encouraged her and her brother, John Hackett, to put lyrics to his music. Soon the ...

"An instinctively melodic approach" —THE AGE. "An up-and-coming artist barely out of her teens." —THE AGE "This music is lean and trim, well conceived from beginning to end." – All About Jazz "She does her part to keep the cool school alive." – The New York City Jazz Record

Primary Instrument

Saxophone

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

A.Mus.A on Alto Saxophone. BMus (hons) in Advanced Performance. MMus from UArts in Philadelphia. 10 years teaching experience with all ages and all levels.

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Lady Luck

Self Produced
2015

buy

The Art of The Melody

Self Produced
2013

buy

41 St Nick

From: The Art of The Melody
By Angela Davis

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