Billie Davies PR
New Digital album Release.
BILLIE DAVIES
"On Hollywood Boulevard - Live at The Mint in New Orleans"
Performed at Music At The Mint in 2017 - brought by The New Orleans Jazz Museum
To be released through ReverbNation and Bandcamp on 08/08/2024
About "On Hollywood Boulevard"
“On Hollywood Boulevard” came about while Billie Davies still lived at 6533 Hollywood Blvd. at The Historic Hillview Hollywood in Hollywood, Los Angeles. She lived there for several years and her many experiences in and impressions of Hollywood Boulevard needed recording. It took from 2012 in Hollywood, the initial conception, to September of 2016 in New Orleans to result in a recorded album of 5 songs that Billie Davies wrote melodies and lyrics for, 1 instrumental improvisation and 1 improvisation with improvised lyrics by IRIS P.
Billie and her husband/recording engineer Mike Davies chose Evan Oberla, with whom she recorded and performed since February of 2015, on keys/synth and trombone and Oliver Watkinson, who became her bass player in the summer of 2015, on electric bass. Billie Davies met Iris P through an introduction by Evan Oberla, during one of their performances at The Dragon’s Den in New Orleans, and was rejoiced to find the perfect vocalist, the perfect chemistry, to record and perform the electric “On Hollywood Boulevard” lyrics and experience.
The Live at The Mint in New Orleans version in 2017 was the third time they performed On Hollywood Boulevard live and according to Billie Davies tradition sounds different from the original recording as nothing can ever be exactly the same every time and needs to be different as it has a different environment, a different audience, a different mood of the day... In Billie's opinion the best recording and performance of the "On Hollywood Boulevard" album.
This Live recording shows the evolution of the music since the original recording in 2016 ... and the music was performed live first at "The Prime Example" in New Orleans during the CD Release Party in December of 2016.
"It is all about life, and my life, on Hollywood Boulevard, and what that boulevard and Hollywood represents to the world, to America. But then again it is also very much about life in general, and how the media has such a big influence on our lives today through the web, TV, movies, magazines, music and its stars.
Whether you call it prostitution or the seduction (touch me, squeeze me, love me) of millions of people every year into the fantasies that are responsible for maintaining one of the biggest brainwash schemes that are basically controlled by Wall Street and Industry & Enterprise, it all lives on Hollywood Boulevard, in Hollywood.
It is a world of Drugs, murder, con artists and thieves.
It is a world of selling the american dream.
It is a world of high end entertainment that most Hollywood Boulevard locals cannot afford or get into, but maybe they work or perform in it.
It is the world of the dream, a last stand of bohemia where poetry is very much alive and where punk rock and rap and hip hop and DJ's rule.
It is the world where we smell the crack in the hall ways and where thugs and hookers and homeless and hopefuls meet at night...
It is a world of selling the American Dream, selling that fantasy of Disney and Oscars and Grammys. Selling the brainwash of the world." (Billie Davies)
"All of my 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. I did not go and consciously pick a style, I just evolve into it and with every project comes something different, depending on the subject of the project or album, there will be a different expression. I do not think of myself playing avant-garde, or avant-jazz or free jazz or nu jazz, I just play jazz and then for the public at large, for the music industry, it needs to be put into a little box or niche… I just play music and what comes naturally to me, in the case of “On Hollywood Boulevard” for example I needed it to sound very electric, almost commercial like because Hollywood Boulevard is a commercial, is very electric and full of neon lights. It’s all jazz to me … It is my roots, answering, calling, and continuing the Mission 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. :)" (Billie Davies).
About Billie Davies
Billie Davies is a drummer and a composer best known for her free, instinctively avant-garde compositions since the mid nineties, and her improvisational drumming techniques she has performed in Europe and in the US. All of her music is improvisational ... reminding us sometimes of, as Jerome Wilson put it on AAJ, "the spiritual jazz tradition, as exemplified by John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders. Billie Davies' work reminds you of many different things but in the end, it is its own original beast, as powerful as anything more well-known musicians have created.. Her Music Is It's Own Original Beast".
By 1977, when she was 22, Billie was working in the Private Night Club sector as a DJ in Cologne, Germany. That set the stage for a successful DJ career in Belgium a few years later, she remembers "Les Cinq Anneaux" in Knokke, coastal Belgium, where she packed the house every weekend.
Aged 25 Davies started the transition to become a professional musician.
She played and performed in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece for the next 7 years.
At a crossroads in her musical career, in 1984, while living and performing in the South of France (Montpellier, Toulouse, Biarritz, La Rochelle), Billie ended up receiving a grant from Max Roach to study at Berklee College of Music, this was after he heard one of her tapes she laid down with a bass player she met in Montpellier, France. Billie was however having too much fun in the south of France, living the life of a gypsy jazz musician and therefore decided not to take the offer. In Max Roach's words: "Hearing from your tape, you could learn more fundamental drumming techniques, but I also hear the natural drummer, so my advice is for you not to worry too much about your technical skill, you will develop your own, I can definitely hear that, but just in case that you might want to study in a good program, please accept my invitation in the form of a talent grant to come study at the Berklee College of Music, all you need to worry about is finding a place to live and some money to survive".
A move to the United States at 32 gave her an opportunity to play all over the west coast. In 1987 in Oregon, she met and played a few times with Leroy Vinegar, and then later in early 1988 she moved to California, San Francisco where she was mostly active in North Beach and in the Lower-Haight district, where she met and ended up playing a few times with John Handy and played frequently with local jazz notables at their unforgiving jams, in her words: the best learning school she ever had.
In the mid-nineties she recorded "Cobra Basemento", that included "The Man From Tollund", and "Dreams", the infamous boombox recordings, with Saul Kaye and Mike Goodwin. They were preserved for the future in 2004 & 2005.
In 2009 she moved to Hollywood, California and released "all about Love." with Tom Bone Ralls and Oliver Steinberg and "12 VOLT" with Daniel Coffeng and Adam Levy and the 23rd Los Angeles Music Awards awarded her best Jazz Artist in 2013.
In March of 2014 she moved to New Orleans where she released "Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon", with Evan Oberla, Alex Blaine, Branden Lewis and Ed Strohsahl, "On Hollywood Boulevard" with Evan Oberla, Oliver Watkinson and Iris P and "PERSPECTIVES II" re-distributed as "PERSPECTIVES" with Evan Oberla, Oliver Watkinson, Ari Kohn, Iris P and Allie Porter.
She was nominated "Best Contemporary Jazz Artist" by the 2017 Best Of The Beat Awards, AND in 2019 they nominated her "Best Drummer".
In 2020 she recorded "Whadeva" with Damani Butler and Maude Caillat
In 2022 she left New Orleans and made a permanent move to West Palm Beach, Florida.
Discography As leader:
2004: Cobra Basemento
2005: Dreams
2012: all about Love.
2013: 12 VOLT
2015: "Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon"
2016: "On Hollywood Boulevard"
2018: "PERSPECTIVES II"
Discography As A Contributor:
2020: "Whadeva" (Live at Dangerous Art Studios, New Orleans, LA, 2/13/2020), a Damani Butler project.
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Reactions to the music of the original recording of "On Hollywood Boulevard" in 2016: ~~~
Billie Davies and her team of jazztronauts lace together a bitter sweet story of adventure on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams that is as much dripping in nostalgia as it is taking the listener to new auditory places never before visited- all while wrapping you up in it’s very sexy sound & style. The whole album puts me in a unique mood as if the nostalgia I am feeling were my own! LOVE it! Raphaelle O’Neal (NOLAButterfly).
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““On Hollywood Boulevard” is a glamorous, gorgeous mixture of jazz and funk displaying Billie Davies’s deft skill. Luxurious textures dominate the collection as Billie Davies draws from a wide variety of sources. Everything simply glistens as the attention to tone and texture are of the utmost importance. Bass works wonders alongside the rather loose, careful rhythms that adorn the album. Mood serves an important function as Billie Davies explore vast terrains, oftentimes delving into surreal, otherworldly soundscapes. Billie Davies offers a cool confident update on jazz with the playful nature of “On Hollywood Boulevard”.”
(Beach Slot, Skope Magazine.)
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BILLIE DAVIES - A NU EXPERIENCE -On Hollywood Boulevard
Review by Chris Baber on Jazz Views
Billie Davies: electronic drums; IRIS P: vocals; Oliver Watkinson: electric bass; Evan Oberla: keyboards, synth, trombone.
Recorded New Orleans, September 26, 2016
On the one hand this set represents a very new direction for Billie Davies, working in Nu Jazz, which bridges jazz and contemporary R&B and hip hop. Her choice of an electronic drum kit also lends some really interesting textures to the sounds she produces. On the other hand, the drumming is as solid, nuanced and captivating as ever. Interestingly, the approach taken to recording was similar to that of her ‘Hand in Hand in the Hand of the Moon’ CD; the music is recorded in front of a small, live audience in a single take with images relating to the music projected behind the band. This captures an exciting, slightly edge-of-the-seat performance that conveys the sense of improvisation while maintaining a well-balanced interplay between the artists.
The lyrics, written by Davies, reminisce on her time living on Hollywood Boulevard, and have that blend of story-telling and heartfelt poetry that you find in, say, Joni Mitchell. During this time (in 2013), Davies was awarded the Los Angeles Music Awards Jazz Musician of the Year, and moved to New Orleans the following year. The delivery of the lyrics by IRIS P (Catherine Poree) is beautifully jazzy, and she sings soulfully across the rhythm in an understated way that gives a sardonic edge to some of the stories and memories and a bittersweet longing to others. This could easily have been a duet between IRIS P’s singing and the swing of Davies’ drumming. Davies relishes the electronic drum kit, moving from snare and toms to harsher metallic sounds, and uses it creatively to add texture to the vocals. You can almost get the stories from the drumming alone. The playing of Watkinson and Oberla, who have played and recorded regularly with Davies over the past few years, bring a driving edge to the music and work superbly off the mood of the lyrics and the subtle shifts in emphasis that Davies gives from her drum seat. Throughout the set, Davies leads the music, pushing the pulse and emphasising the words in ways that encourages keys and bass to find the gaps and cleverly work around and within them. I particularly liked the evocative playing of Oberla on trombone on several of the tracks. The group is a winning combination and one that promises an exciting change of direction for Davies.
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Billie Davies
On Hollywood Boulevard
(Self Release)
Reviewed By Bobby Reed for DownBeat Magazine
When DownBeat profiled Billie Davies in its May 2016 issue, the drummer was backed by a band called Bad Boyzzzz, but her current quartet is called A Nu Experience. And although Davies is a jazz drummer based in New Orleans, her new album contains a healthy dose of r&b and was inspired by a period of about five years when she lived on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Six of the album’s seven tracks features vocals by Iris P, a singer with impressive range who is also adept at spoken-word passages. Davies supplies the electronic drums and percussion, joined by two musicians from Bad Boyzzzz: Oliver Watkinson (electric bass) and Evan Oberla (electric piano, synthesizer and trombone). The program doesn’t shy away from the darker elements of life on Hollywood Boulevard, with lyrics that allude to thugs, drugs, pimps and prostitutes. As a bandleader, Davies delivers an ambitious program that incorporates r&b-flavored vocals, propulsive bass lines, drum patterns with a swing feel, occasionally blues-tinged keyboard work, growling trombone, epic prog-rock synthesizer washes and brief bouts of hip-hop turntablism, all tied together with an improviser’s approach. Indeed, much of the album feels like improvised adventure, but that doesn’t prevent Iris P from injecting some memorable, repeated vocal hooks, as on “The Girl In The Window” when she sings about an “unreachable dream.”
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Billie Davies - A Nu Experience: On Hollywood Boulevard
Reviewed by SACHA O'GRADY for All About Jazz
From Buddy Rich to Billy Cobham, jazz drumming (as opposed to pop-rock) has been a predominately masculine affair, and something which perhaps remains so even to this day -which isn't to say that women are excluded from the club entirely.
Drummer Billie Davies began her career in Europe, performing extensively across the continent, before immigrating to America, until eventually she made her way to New Orleans in 2014, teaming up with IRIS P (vocals), Evan Oberla (electric piano, trombone) and Oliver Watkinson (electric bass) to form A Nu Experience in 2016.
On Hollywood Boulevard is the Belgian born and award winning musician/composer's sixth album, and consists of seven compositions that are both fresh and engaging. Recorded live in front of a small intimate audience in attendance, each performance was captured in one take at Cobra Basement Studios in her home town of New Orleans.
Davies describes the inspiration behind her latest release as being about "the people that live there, the environment, the atmosphere, and how it all comes to life everyday... I lived right in the middle of it all for 5 years on Hollywood Boulevard."
First track "On Hollywood Boulevard 1" is an intriguing blend of electric piano, drums, spacey electronics and haunting trombone, as if continuing from where Get Up With It period Miles Davis ended. For almost ten minutes, Davies' not only keeps time but also stretches it, successfully adding a few additional dimensions via her drum kit in the process. Things dramatically change pace with the utterly enchanting "The Girl In The Window," where the instruments delicately interweave to create an intricate web around IRIS P's exquisite vocals. Similarly "Jacaranda," another slow, seductively timeless number centred round IRIS's siren-like inflections.
But it is Oberla's electric piano that is the politely dominant instrument throughout this record, whose playing is full of subtlety and nuance, be it on the iridescent "Palm Trees," or the largely spoken word "Yellow Sunshine," each of these compositions sparkle and glisten with a compelling yet unassuming sophistication.
The social diatribe that is "Hollywood Boulevard," delivered by IRIS behind a modern funky avant-garde backbeat, wouldn't seem out of place on either a Gil Scott-Heron or Patti Smith record, while final number "On Hollywood Boulevard 2," seamlessly shifts between free-jazz and more time-honoured jazz territory, highlighting the communicative synergy between all four artists.
Clearly Billie Davies and A Nu Experience are a class act, one full of bold inventive and inspired interplay. Let us hope it won't be their only project together, and that there will be more adventurous music to come.
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