Richard Davis

Richard Davis is my favorite kind of musician: the one whose name you learn only after you have already loved his work. Long before I knew who played that bass on Astral Weeks, it had quietly reorganized how I heard the whole record. That he could anchor Eric Dolphy and Andrew Hill on the jazz frontier and then turn around and define a rock landmark says everything about his range and his ego-free musicianship. I also admire the second act: decades of teaching, passing the craft forward. He played until 2023, and the line he held still hums.

Name (English)

Richard Davis

Name (Japanese)

リチャード・デイヴィス (ベーシスト)

Reading

りちゃーど・でいゔぃす (べーしすと)

Born

April 15, 1930 – September 6, 2023

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Horse

Origin

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Occupation

pedagogue / jazz musician / university teacher / recording artist / double-bassist

Awards & achievements

• NEA Jazz Masters

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://richarddavis.org
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%87%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A3%E3%82%B9%20(%E3%83%99%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B7%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88)

Tags

• Illinois
• pedagogue
• jazz musician
• university teacher

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.