The music you hear on this page comes from two sources: "15 Minutes of Fame" and "As the Stream Flows" are on my trio CD "A High Tolerance for the Truth," which features Garth Stevenson on bass and Ziv Ravitz on drums. They are former Berklee students now making a name for themselves in New York.
"Bopmania" is from my last quartet CD, "Hymn to Freedom," with Masa Kamaguchi on bass, Phil Grenadier on trumpet, and Joe Hunt on drums.
The Suzanne Davis Quartet appears in various incarnations as a quartet, trio, or duo, depending on the circumstances. The core band meets once a week at my house for a session. It is a musical laboratory in which we develop vaccines against the disease of living in contemporary American society. This is the music I have always wanted to play but could not on my regular gig for 19 years at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston. There, if you played in an odd meter, and people suddenly realized they couldn't tap their feet to it, or if you messed with the harmony so they no longer recognized the tune, you got fired. My first jazz piano teacher, the great Charlie Banacos, told me a long time ago that I would get fired from my gig "when you're a really great player--that's how you'll know." So now, if I'm not a really great player, I am at least an original player, an accomplished player, and if the boozed-up hotel lounge crowd can't make sense of my take on the standards, then too bad!
I wanted to play music that could be like a swarm of angry bees if necessary. So I began to do that after I was fired from my hotel gig in 2004 after 19 years. It was time.
In fall of 2007 I played in Paris, France. As of this writing (July 2009) I am back in Paris, performing at bab-ilo and the Mortefontaine Jazz Festival with Jerome Fouquet. Check out the video link to "Fifteen Minutes of Fame at l'Entrepôt" in Paris. The French musicians who played with me were fantastic! Jerome is playing trumpet.
My group isn't really about me. It's a conversation that never ends, which is what all great music should be.
..
Hi Suzanne, can't believe i never posted a comment on your page,guess it was about time to fix that....,very nice piano work and interplay with the band,nice compositions as well,i also enjoyed your videos especially the second one,guess it wasn't easy to play that kind of music when people are chatting,eating and so on,i know the feeling,but the music came out great regardless. Wish you luck for your career and some warm weather your way,i know it's been pretty cold up there. Marcello
A big thanks to all my friends... I just went over 10,000 listens on my player. I've added a fifth tune to my player, an arrangement of Scott Henderson's "Harpoon", the leader and guitar player of Tribal Tech.
Online Now!
