Mean What You Say: Richard Davis and Mel Lewis

There’s nothing in jazz like Richard Davis and Mel Lewis. 

Bassist Richard Davis could swing and walk a melodic line with the greatest African American masters of the 50s and 60s— recordings with Sarah Vaughan, Ben Webster, and Kenny Burrell make his case amply. To hard-core jazz fans, Richard Davis is probably best remembered now for his playing with the New Composers of Blue Note— Bobby Hutcherson, Eric Dolphy, Joe Henderson, and Andrew Hill. 

Davis was also a consummate professional who thrived in every kind of professional environment, especially the recording studio. His resume is filled with Creed Taylor productions for Verve, Oliver Nelson big band dates, and one bright star in the pop-rock firmament, his unforgettable playing on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks.

This combination— straight ahead mastery, studio assassin, avant-garde enabler— brings to mind exactly no one else from this era. Only Mr. Ron Carter, perhaps Davis’ closest analogue, comes close, though Carter was perhaps less involved in new music than Davis. 

After leaving Sarah Vaughan, Davis recorded with the Eric Dolphy/Booker Little Quintet at the Five Spot in July 1961. On these recordings, Davis usually avoids the extreme high register, joining Mal Waldron and Ed Blackwell in creating a thick, unchanging texture underneath the soloists. 

But sometime around 1963, another dimension of Davis’ music was revealed— he was now a first responder to all musical ideas, a conversationalist who used the whole range of the bass to create tension and new textures. Now, Davis’ virtuosity lent whatever music he was playing a touch of the avant-garde.

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Drummer Mel Lewis, born in Buffalo, NY in 1929, was on the road before he was 18 years old, playing swing music while educating himself through records about the new developments from Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach. He quickly rose to the top of his field, joining Stan Kenton in 1955, where he played Bill Holman arrangements with Maynard Ferguson, Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank, and others. After quitting Kenton in 1957, Lewis stayed on the West Coast, playing clubs and working in the studios.

Lewis moved back to New York in 1963, and by 1966, he and trumpeter/composer/arranger Thad Jones (brother to Elvin and Hank) had launched a big band—Thad Jones/Mel Lewis and The Jazz Orchestra. A vehicle for Thad’s writing and Mel’s conception of a big band, the group began a weekly Monday night residence at the Village Vanguard in 1966, thus founding a non-institutional jazz institution, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, still going strong on Monday nights here in NYC. 

Maybe no drummer in jazz took on the challenge of making a whole out of the parts of a big band arrangement the way Mel did. In Mel’s hands, the discreet events of a chart— intro, melody, backgrounds, etc etc— would become a coherent musical journey. And he did it with tiny gestures, subtle color and energy changes; hence the commonplace of Mel Lewis “playing like a small-group drummer in a big band”.

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Both Thad and Mel wanted Richard Davis for their big band. Richard and Mel had been playing together since Lewis arrived back in New York, first in Ben Webster’s quartet and later on many recording sessions, with James Moody’s Great Day (Argo, 1963) and Brother Jack McDuff’s Prelude (Prestige, 1964) being two great examples. 

Lewis and Davis were perhaps an unlikely team; Lewis was an establishment figure, a veteran big band and studio musician best known for playing with Stan Kenton, Davis was an avant-garde virtuoso who’d left Sarah Vaughan to play with Eric Dolphy and Booker Little. Though Davis worked in the studios alongside Mel, his milieu didn’t overlap much with Lewis’. 

The classic bass and drum teams— Elvin and Jimmy Garrison, Tony and Ron, Jimmy Cobb or Philly Joe and Paul Chambers, Peter and Kenny Washington— all seem to share an aesthetic, or viewpoint; they’re hearing the music in a similar way. When the music starts, the bassist and drummer play in parallel, often in lockstep, creating a unified front, based on deep sympathy and mutual understanding.

But with Mel Lewis and Richard Davis, instead of a shared aesthetic and unified front, they often seem to have opposed world views, actively disagreeing about what the music should sound like! Richard, it seems, wants to go off, playing texturally or contrapuntally, while Mel stays focussed on fundamentals, sticking to the script, moving the arrangement forward.

But this is just the surface— a closer listen to them, especially with Thad Jones, reveals a deep sympathy, a fundamental rapport and chemistry. No matter how ‘alternative’ Richard Davis would get, creating wormholes of the avant-garde in the straight-ahead space time, Mel had his back; Richard likewise kept Lewis connected to a contemporary African-American aesthetic. 

Mel exposed Davis’ deep connection to straight-ahead jazz; Davis kept Mel in the present and future. Ancient to modern: Richard Davis and Mel Lewis.

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Mel and Richard recorded together a lot; not too much of it is easily findable. But all seven Solid State Thad/Mel albums are streaming¹. So, from that body of work, I’ve selected 10 personal favorites, each one highlighting a different aspect of Richard Davis and Mel Lewis.

These are just my favorites— explore the records, find your own, and leave me some comments! 

1.) “Once Around”, from Presenting The Jazz Orchestra (Solid State, 1966). Mel plays perfect brushes, while Richard plays interactively and texturally. This is track one on the first Thad/Mel album; Davis is telling us this will be no ordinary excellent jazz record, and Mel is on his team, backing him up.

2.) “Three and One”, from Presenting The Jazz Orchestra. When Mel opens up on the Chinese cymbal and swings out with Richard, a classic sound is born. Richard’s solo is another world; Mel cooly swings, brushes on the cymbal², and keeps the arrangement moving forward. Richard’s avant-garde portal is successfully folded into Thad and Mel’s conception.

3.) “Ah-That’s Freedom”, extended version from Village Vanguard Live Sessions 3 (LRC Sonny Lester Collection, released 1990) with the longer Roland Hanna intro. Richard alternates between swinging and shaping the improvisation, while Mel just holds it down, has his back. Differing views creating unique music— Mel knew how special Richard was.  

4.) “Baccafellin” from Live at the Village Vanguard (Solid State, 1967). Mel and Richard play some up-to-the-minute modern jazz on a minor-key burner, culminating in a few choruses of tenor trio with Joe Farrell. Davis inspires Lewis to play some abstract ideas, while they keep to the big picture of the arrangement. Amazing.

5.) “Don’t Git Sassy” from Live at the Village Vanguard . Mel plays the platonic ideal of a shuffle; the 8-bar form might hamstring a lesser bassist, but is an open field for Richard. Davis’ willingness to wage over-the-border assault on the harmony seems to energize Mel. Soaring heights; some of the best music.

6.) “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town” from The Big Band Sound of Thad Jones/Mel Lewis featuring Miss Ruth Brown (Solid State, 1968). Mel’s left foot on the off-beat³ with Richard’s insistent pah—oom—pah—oom—pah is perfection, pure folk wisdom, professionally rendered. This is why Richard and Mel were studio masters.

7.) “Get Out My Life Woman” from Presenting Joe Williams and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis (Solid State, 1966). The backbeat and lightly swinging 16th notes are sublime; Mel and Richard are completely united, hooking up Williams and making room for Thad’s arrangement. 

8.) “The Night Time Is The Right Time” from Presenting Joe Williams and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis. Once again, thank you Kenny Washington for alerting the world to this track. Only Mel can play slow like this, and Richard simply enables. The first chorus of bass/drums/voice (and a hint of guitar) is unbeatable. 

9.) “Us” from Consummation (Solid State/Blue Note, 1970). Richard on electric, Mel on funky-tuned drums, playing the hell out of what might be Thad’s take on the “horn band” sound of 1970— Blood Sweat and Tears, Chicago, Chase, etc. With Joe Williams and Ruth Brown, Richard and Mel are tasteful and restrained; here, they open up and get just a little bit dirty.

10.) “Fingers” from Consummation. A sprawling, 10-minute rhythm changes, this shows how much variety Mel and Richard could generate; at times, they simply lock up and swing, at other times they drop in and out, diverge, and reconnect. 

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These are just my choices— I want to hear yours! Leave notes in the comments; that’s where the juice on this Substack is.

Assembling this list was so much fun. This is great music— I hadn’t listened hard to these records in years. Bravo, respect, and gratitude, Richard Davis and Mel Lewis! 

1. Village Vanguard Live Sessions 3, issued in 1990 on LRC (or is the label actually Sonny Lester Collection? I can’t tell) is an oddity. Folks my age bought this CD and the others in the ‘Sonny Lester Collection’ — they were cheap and everywhere, often the only Thad/Mel you could find in the Nineties unless you were in a big city. Village Vanguard Live Sessions 3 is the same music as Thad/Mel Live At The Village Vanguard, but a slightly different mix, some different tracks, and longer takes, preserving Thad’s stage announcements and Roland Hanna’s intros. Somehow this semi-legal collection has made it to the streaming age; for the curious, the whole album is well worth hearing, another perspective on a classic album.

2. The couple times in the early 2000s I was fortunate to play with Mr. Davis, the only instruction he gave was “Brushes on the cymbal during my solo”!

3. According to Billy Hart, everyone (including Billy) got this from Donald Bailey.