Eddie Lckjaw Davis

Among the main protagonists credited with linking the big band era with the soul jazz scene that emerged during the late 1950s, Eddie Lockjaw Davis remains a notable influence on jazz saxophonists to this day. While perhaps not always displaying the finesse of his contemporaries, Davis produced a tone that was wholly unique and capable of emitting an aggressive, bluesy sound alongside lines of great tenderness and sensitivity. The flexibility of his playing lent itself to rhythm and blues, swing, hard bop and Latin jazz over the years, and while his early career featured Davis supporting some of the finest artists of the period, his greatest records came when he took up the role of bandleader, notably during his tenancy with the Prestige label. This collection features the eight albums by Eddie Lockjaw Davis as leader released on the Prestige label between 1958 and 1961.

When Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Johnny Griffin joined forces and formed a two-tenor front line, bop enthusiasts could safely assume that the sparks were going to fly. Davis and Griffin, after all, were one of hard bop's exciting tenor teams – their saxophone battles were as legendary as the encounters of Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, or Phil Woods and Gene Quill (who, unlike the other teams mentioned here, were a two-alto pair). Battle Stations, like other Davis/Griffin encounters, points to the fact that the two tenormen never had a problem finding common ground.

When Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis entered a New York studio with producer Orrin Keepnews on May 3, 1962, they did some things that were unusual for the two-tenor team. They played mostly ballads, they didn't engage in any tenor battles and - most surprising of all - they didn't perform together on any of the tunes. Griffin was featured on four songs, Davis on another four. The same rhythm section - Horace Parlan, bassist Buddy Catlett and drummer Art Taylor - was always present, but Parlan played piano on the songs featuring Griffin and celeste on the songs featuring Davis. For whatever reason, the performances remained in the can for 42 years; they weren't even mastered until 1966, and they finally saw the light of day when Fantasy released Pisces in 2004…