Billie Davies

ABOUT

Billie Davies is a jazz drummer and composer best known for her Avant-garde, Free Jazz and Avant-garde Jazz compositions since the mid nineties, and her improvisational drumming techniques she has performed in Europe and in the US.
Billie Davies hails originally from Brugge, Belgium.
She played and performed all over Europe until immigrating to the United States at 32, where she has been active as a jazz musician ever since.

On November 14, 2013 while living in Hollywood, Billie Davies received the "Jazz Artist Of The Year" Award by the 23rd Annual Los Angeles Music Awards. That year in L.A. notices the beginnings of her inclinations towards a style that can be best explained today as Nu jazz. (On the recordings of "12 VOLT" she played on her combined set of electric and accoustic drums and later she released two improvisations, "SUNRAAAH" & "Melancholia Abstractissimus".).

In March of 2014 she made a permanent move to New Orleans where she has graced the stages ever since and recorded her latest album "Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon" which was released in New Orleans in October of 2015 and deviated from her previous release by it being again (just as "all about Love.") an all accoustic recording with horns.

She received international attention due to a player feature, "BILLIE DAVIES '20 Years Stronger', published in Downbeat Magazine May'16 edition.
Articles have been written on her music from Prague to Belgium to London to New York to San Jose.

All of her music is improvisational... a conversation between musicians and musical instruments, a joint emotional expression that is being communicated to an audience, a listener, a community.

"With a background in Classical and Jazz and a lifetime of musical experiences in jams, performances, recordings and music production, the listener is treated to jazz inclinations within her ensembles that bristle with cutting-edge freshness". (C.J. Bond)

Screen name:: mike1050437
Member since:: Feb 03 2015; Active over 1 month ago
Level of commitment:: Very Committed
Years together:: 4
Gigs played:: Over 100
Tend to practice:: 2-3 times per week
Age:: 65 years

Influences

All of her music is improvisational... a conversation between musicians and musical instruments, a joint emotional expression inspired by a certain common feeling, thought or perspective that is being communicated to an audience, a listener, a community.
Most of her influences stem from Classical, Gypsy, Manouche, Blues, Jazz, Free Jazz, Avant-jazz, Avant-garde, Soul and Funk. As a player she feels that Al Foster, Billy Higgins, Billy Cobham, Jack De Johnette, and Ed Thigpen, have been her biggest influences, she learned from them extensively while she admired the cool styles of Max Roach, Elvin Jones and Tony Williams.

Her deep rooted influences: Classical, Jazz, Free Jazz and Avant Jazz, Avant Garde, Gypsy, Manouche, Blues.

Major influences: Jack De Johnette, Billy Higgins, Billy Hart, Al Foster, Ed Thigpen, Billy Cobham... Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

Important influences: Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams... Music produced under The ECM label in the 70's/80's with artists such as Dollar Brand, Abdulah Ibrahim, Jan Garbarek, John Abercrombie, Terje Rypdal, Charles Lloyd became an important influence and her inspirations have been influenced by Carla Bley, Nina Simone, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Chopin, Ravel, Serge Vandercam, Matisse, Manitas de Plata, Irene Papas, Vangelis, Paco De Lucia, John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Trilok Gurtu, Klaus Schulze, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, Charles Trenet, George Brassens, Mozart, Bach, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Mussorgsky, Christian Dotremont, the CoBrA movement, Bram Bogart, Hugo Claus, Gaudi, Braque, Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali, Miro, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and so many more... and ~~~ Universal Energy ~~~.

“LOUD AND CLEAR
What Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins accomplished in “The Shape of Jazz to Come” was not in vain, I heard it!!!... What Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor left us was not in vain, I heard it!!!...
LOUD AND CLEAR
It was their roots, It is my roots, answering, calling, and continuing the Mission of Fine ART in JAZZ, in MUSIC, of liberating the notes to be free and the sounds to be re-invented, re-explored, so that others will hear and see and feel the ROOTS.
So that others may IDENTIFY with it. As I Do.
So that this extremely FREE, Heart Beating, Soul Searching, Mind Bending form of FINE ART through the medium of MUSIC... be still here
after I am gone...
UNCONSTRAINED by color, race, gender, dogma, politics, fashion and trends and money.
LOUD AND CLEAR” (Billie Davies)
Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which improvisation may take place. This structure may be composed note for note in advance, partially or even completely. The origins of avant-garde jazz are in the innovations of the immediate stylistic successors of Charlie Parker. Musicians such as Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane introduced modal improvisation and experimented with atonality and dissonance. Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, and Ornette Coleman became controversial jazz innovators. (Wikipedia)