Under-recognized bassist (born April 15, 1930) was maybe the most dominant since Charles Mingus. Part of generation of Chicago musicians which included Johnny Griffin, John Gilmore and Clifford Jordan, Davis played with fellow Chicagoans Ahmad Jamal (1953-4) and Don Shirley (1954-6), toured and recorded with Charlie Ventura (1956), Sarah Vaughn (1957-60), and Kenny Burrell (1959). He moved to New York in 1960, where he freelanced and played with influential modern saxophonist Eric Dolphy off an on between 1961 and 1964, and did session work for a varied bunch than included Igor Stravinsky and Van Morrison, and gigging with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis band (1966-72).
He came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977, and since then, he has taught and recorded live sets with Donald Harrison, Terence Blanchard, Bobby Bradford, John Carter and Archie Shepp, as well as a few under his own name, and a studio series with Tatsuya Nakamura's "New York Unit."
Among his recordings are Dolphy's Music Matador and Booker Ervin's The Blues Book.
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