THE NEW CD "12 VOLT" - BILLIE DAVIES is now available for your music collections....
Get it at CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/billiedavies
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Billie Davies | 12 Volt | CD Baby Music Store
Billie Davies | 12 Volt | CD Baby Music Store
THE NEW CD "12 VOLT" - BILLIE DAVIES is now available for your music collections....
Get it at CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/billiedavies
THE NEW CD "12 VOLT" - BILLIE DAVIES is now available for your music collections....
Get it at CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/billiedavies
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Something Else! Reviews: Billie Davies – 12 Volt (2013) Reviewed by S. Victor Aaron.
Jazz, Uncategorized — October 2, 2013 at 9:00 am
The 23rd Annual L.A. Music Awards has recently nominated drummer and bandleader Davies as “Jazz Artist of the Year” for 2013, a mere four years after she set up shop in Los Angeles and made it her home. But this bohemian from Belgium has quickly made positive impressions everywhere she goes, including this reviewer when sizing up her third album all about Love a year ago.
For album #4 12 Volt, Davies assembled a new trio to go along with her new songs, in which she constructed around a concept of simplicity and being closer to nature. In this case, being closer to nature meant deconstructing jazz to its base components. The liner notes for Billie Davies’ upcoming album went into the detail of what makes the jazz of this drummer stand out from the herd, but one sentence seemed to sum it up nicely: “Davies is not countering the modern jazz movement so much but rather stripping it down to its essence.”
Moving on from the trumpet/bass/drums configuration of Love, Davies enlisted Amsterdam guitarist Daniel Coffeng and acoustic bassist Adam Levy to make this album live in the studio in a single day. That’s an approach that has fostered simplicity and natural playing. The airy, free flowing way these songs are played are like that, too. Take the opening cut, “Collioure,” an esoteric melody that moves at a naturally occurring cadence. Davis is making melody right alongside Coffeng, and Levy’s arco bass provides a well-defined harmonic counterpoint. The second part of song descends and ascends, Davies soloing while closely following Coffeng’s moves. With such attention to timbre, space and mood, it’s easy to forget that much of the music here and on the rest of the album is dissonant, because it’s avant-garde in a very embraceable way.
When listening to Davies play, it’s easier to think of her not as a drummer but a tonal painter who swipes brushstrokes with her drumsticks. “Collioure” is a prime example, and also in her subtly guiding ever so incremental changes in intonation on songs such as “Tango for Patti” as well as confidently leading the group through a deconstructed section within “Les Landes.” On angular blues such as “!2 Volt” and “Grapes, Plums and Tomatoes” she swings authoritatively without ever having to resort to brute force.
Coffeng employs the pillowy, sweet tones of Jim Hall, and he demonstrates nifty single note run skills during a solo on “Gypsy.” But his economy of notes is perhaps his greatest asset for this session; it fits in fine with the “less is more” mantra Davies champions and allows her and Levy to be heard as equals. The songs generally follow the head-solos-head format, but the extended solo sections are allowed so much freedom, whole other songs are nearly created between the heads; the group members typically improvise as a unit.
It’s some honor for Billie Davies to be considered for the top jazz musician award in a big musical and cultural center such as Los Angeles, but that the institution pays close attention to the likes of her speaks well for their recognition of outlier talent. And 12 Volt can’t help but to strengthen Davies’ chances for winning it.
12 Volt is due out later this week on CDBaby. Visit Billie Davies’ website for more info.
Billie Davies – 12 Volt (2013)
The 23rd Annual L.A. Music Awards has recently nominated drummer and bandleader Davies as “Jazz Artist of the Year” for 2013, a mere four years after she set up shop in Los Angeles and made it her home. But this bohemian from Belgium has quickly made positive impressions everywhere she goes, including this reviewer when sizing up her third album all about Love a year ago.
For album #4 12 Volt, Davies assembled a new trio to go along with her new songs, in which she constructed around a concept of simplicity and being closer to nature. In this case, being closer to nature meant deconstructing jazz to its base components. The liner notes for Billie Davies’ upcoming album went into the detail of what makes the jazz of this drummer stand out from the herd, but one sentence seemed to sum it up nicely: “Davies is not countering the modern jazz movement so much but rather stripping it down to its essence.”
Moving on from the trumpet/bass/drums configuration of Love, Davies enlisted Amsterdam guitarist Daniel Coffeng and acoustic bassist Adam Levy to make this album live in the studio in a single day. That’s an approach that has fostered simplicity and natural playing. The airy, free flowing way these songs are played are like that, too. Take the opening cut, “Collioure,” an esoteric melody that moves at a naturally occurring cadence. Davis is making melody right alongside Coffeng, and Levy’s arco bass provides a well-defined harmonic counterpoint. The second part of song descends and ascends, Davies soloing while closely following Coffeng’s moves. With such attention to timbre, space and mood, it’s easy to forget that much of the music here and on the rest of the album is dissonant, because it’s avant-garde in a very embraceable way.
When listening to Davies play, it’s easier to think of her not as a drummer but a tonal painter who swipes brushstrokes with her drumsticks. “Collioure” is a prime example, and also in her subtly guiding ever so incremental changes in intonation on songs such as “Tango for Patti” as well as confidently leading the group through a deconstructed section within “Les Landes.” On angular blues such as “!2 Volt” and “Grapes, Plums and Tomatoes” she swings authoritatively without ever having to resort to brute force.
Coffeng employs the pillowy, sweet tones of Jim Hall, and he demonstrates nifty single note run skills during a solo on “Gypsy.” But his economy of notes is perhaps his greatest asset for this session; it fits in fine with the “less is more” mantra Davies champions and allows her and Levy to be heard as equals. The songs generally follow the head-solos-head format, but the extended solo sections are allowed so much freedom, whole other songs are nearly created between the heads; the group members typically improvise as a unit.
It’s some honor for Billie Davies to be considered for the top jazz musician award in a big musical and cultural center such as Los Angeles, but that the institution pays close attention to the likes of her speaks well for their recognition of outlier talent. And 12 Volt can’t help but to strengthen Davies’ chances for winning it.
12 Volt is due out later this week on CDBaby. Visit Billie Davies’ website for more info.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
JAZZ MUSIC: 12 VOLT - BILLIE DAVIES
BILLIE DAVIES - 12 VOLT
Year: 2013
Style: Jazz
Label: Cobra Basement
Musicians: Billie Davies - drums; Daniel Coffeng - guitar; Adam Levy - bass
CD Review: On the first anniversary of her last CD release: The Billie Davies Trio - All About Love (Cobra Basement: 2012), 'lifelong natural musician' drummer Billie Davies has released another unimpeachable work: BILLIE DAVIES - 12 VOLT. Whereas, All About Love featured some of the music of venerated composers, including Victor Young, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Mongo Santamaria, 12 VOLT features exclusively original compositions of Billie Davies, revealing yet another formidable creative talent in Davies' impressive artistic arsenal; making this an important CD for Davies, since it adds the crucial tyne of 'composer/arranger' to her sterling artistic fork, augmenting fearless innovation, and superlative drumming technique.
For 12 VOLT, Davies employs again the trio setting, but with a significant change in players. On All About Love, Tom Bone Ralls appeared on trombone, and Oliver Steinberg played bass. Now guitarist Daniel Coffeng supplants Bone Ralls, and bassist Adam Levy takes the place of Steinberg. Davies describes 12 VOLT as an ode to Manitas De Plata, the renowned French-born gypsy guitar master, Django Reinhardt, considered the king of gypsy guitarists., and "all Gypsies, Tsiganes, Manouche and Bohemians all over the world," sure to stir wide appeal, and escalating excitement among her expanding music public.
In 12 VOLT, Davies' trio presents a collection of musical images of the world of the Gypsy in portraits of untouched natural beauty, as well as its untouchable rugged other side, seen in the fierce pride and passion of a forgotten, invisible people, and their way of living; heard in the inspiring Gypsy Flamenco music; felt in the fiery guitar, the dancers' movements and expressions; a mountain of vital culture that demands an odyssey to experience; and Davies went, with her 12-VOLT 'Band on the Run"; no APBs, like the McCartney & Wings 1973 model, but free-spirited bohemians that "... went everywhere the wind was blowing..." (Davies), like (Collioure) with its bewitching European artists' light captured in uncomplicated droplets of color from Daniel Coppeng's guitar, and the easy-listening resonance of Davies' polyrhythmic exchanges.
Davies' other signature contribution to the date, beyond drumming ability, and creative energy, is a remarkable facility to remain unhurried, not irrationally exuberant, but attentive to pristine artistic environments, so as not to provoke uneven corruption or distracting, grainy, biases in the fine textures, natural colors, and flowing sequences of sights and sounds she sees, hears and plays back with impeccable sonic balance, and an almost reverential cadence (Meeting Manitas).
Davies' selection of guitarist Daniel Coffeng, and bassist Adam Levy for this project is noteworthy in its astuteness. Coffeng brings extraordinary facility for transition and energetic flow to avant jazz improvisation (12 Volt) with an extended, progressive, detailed solo, alternating between jazz and rock, but always clear and precise, like the sounds of crickets at night time. Coffeng's musical experience is deeply rooted in music cultures which reach into jazz, blues, soul, reggae, through to classical, rock, Eastern music, Latin American and West African music.
Adam Levy is a well prepared and accomplished upright bass player. His mom was "feeding him boogie woogie piano in their home at a very early age." He gets tons of experience from his brother, Mike, who Levy says is a prodigy on bass. Levy pursued a Jazz degree at the University of South Florida where he studied upright bass. He puts his bona fides in play with a superbly conversant passage depicting peacefulness and harmony, never bitter, (Grapes, Plums and Tomatoes) during exchanges with Davies' expressive drums, and Coffeng's descriptive guitar; reviving the intimate stories of Gypsies toiling in the fields; their loves, lives, prides and passions, against the unending rhythmic drumbeat of moving hands and feet. These two talented players bring to the date, a collective of experience that compliments, and fuels Davies' dauntless search for fertile creative ground to express the varied, but complex experiences unique to her posit as the cutting-edge artist in Neo-Humanistic Expressionist Jazz (Les Landes; Tango for Patti).
But Gypsies can swing too (Gypsy), because Django, "The King" taught them how. They listened, and never forgot. Now sadness, anger, and disappointment are anathema to them: Davies' vivid drumming, Coffeng's uplifting guitar, and Levy's unassailable bass notes, all say so in their precise rhythmic footprints that revisit musical paths Davies traveled while living, and loving the gypsy life all over the South of Europe; footprints now leading toward exciting, unexplored, far-reaching musical frontier space for her muse to continue that restless, relentless quest to create and give musical ears and voice to what is not there...yet!
Track Listing: Collioure; Meeting Manitas; 12 Volt; Les Landes; Tango for Patti; Grapes, Plums and Tomatoes; Gypsy; La Sieste.
Recorded at The Bedrock Room at Bedrock L. A. in Echo Park
Recording Engineer: Eric Rennaker
Recording & Sound Technology/Engineering Management: Mike Davies
Mixing: Mike Davies, Billie Davies, Daniel Coffeng
Mastering: John Vestman at Vestman Mastering in HD format
All Photos by Inez Lewis
CJ Bond, JAZZ MUSIC
Style: Jazz
Label: Cobra Basement
Musicians: Billie Davies - drums; Daniel Coffeng - guitar; Adam Levy - bass
For 12 VOLT, Davies employs again the trio setting, but with a significant change in players. On All About Love, Tom Bone Ralls appeared on trombone, and Oliver Steinberg played bass. Now guitarist Daniel Coffeng supplants Bone Ralls, and bassist Adam Levy takes the place of Steinberg. Davies describes 12 VOLT as an ode to Manitas De Plata, the renowned French-born gypsy guitar master, Django Reinhardt, considered the king of gypsy guitarists., and "all Gypsies, Tsiganes, Manouche and Bohemians all over the world," sure to stir wide appeal, and escalating excitement among her expanding music public.
Davies' other signature contribution to the date, beyond drumming ability, and creative energy, is a remarkable facility to remain unhurried, not irrationally exuberant, but attentive to pristine artistic environments, so as not to provoke uneven corruption or distracting, grainy, biases in the fine textures, natural colors, and flowing sequences of sights and sounds she sees, hears and plays back with impeccable sonic balance, and an almost reverential cadence (Meeting Manitas).
Davies' selection of guitarist Daniel Coffeng, and bassist Adam Levy for this project is noteworthy in its astuteness. Coffeng brings extraordinary facility for transition and energetic flow to avant jazz improvisation (12 Volt) with an extended, progressive, detailed solo, alternating between jazz and rock, but always clear and precise, like the sounds of crickets at night time. Coffeng's musical experience is deeply rooted in music cultures which reach into jazz, blues, soul, reggae, through to classical, rock, Eastern music, Latin American and West African music.
 | ||||||
| L - R: bassist Adam Levy; drummer Billie Davies; guitarist Daniel Coffeng |
But Gypsies can swing too (Gypsy), because Django, "The King" taught them how. They listened, and never forgot. Now sadness, anger, and disappointment are anathema to them: Davies' vivid drumming, Coffeng's uplifting guitar, and Levy's unassailable bass notes, all say so in their precise rhythmic footprints that revisit musical paths Davies traveled while living, and loving the gypsy life all over the South of Europe; footprints now leading toward exciting, unexplored, far-reaching musical frontier space for her muse to continue that restless, relentless quest to create and give musical ears and voice to what is not there...yet!
Track Listing: Collioure; Meeting Manitas; 12 Volt; Les Landes; Tango for Patti; Grapes, Plums and Tomatoes; Gypsy; La Sieste.
Recorded at The Bedrock Room at Bedrock L. A. in Echo Park
Recording Engineer: Eric Rennaker
Recording & Sound Technology/Engineering Management: Mike Davies
Mixing: Mike Davies, Billie Davies, Daniel Coffeng
Mastering: John Vestman at Vestman Mastering in HD format
All Photos by Inez Lewis
CJ Bond, JAZZ MUSIC
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Bop-N-Jazz: Billie Davies 12 Volt 2013
The first review of "12 VOLT", the new album by BILLIE DAVIES is in.
Read all about it...
Bop-N-Jazz: Billie Davies 12 Volt 2013:
The organic essence of improvisational music. The evocative manipulation of sound and silence into a living breathing microcosm of emotion and spontaneous creativity.
Brent Black / www.bop-n-jazz.com
Melodic minimalism...12 Volt is improvisational music stripped down to a bare bones approach of lyrical passion and purpose. Billie Davies is more than a drummer as she possesses compositional skills that have 12 Volt as engaging as perhaps any trio based ensemble working today. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of 12 Volt is that it is a live studio recording. Live studio recordings can be magic or they can be a train wreck.
Strictly as an instrumentalist Billie Davies is one of the more lyrically based drummers in the style of a Max Roach and her work is quickly gaining attention as she was nominated as "Jazz Artist" of the year 2013 by the 23rd annual L.A. Music Awards...The other ensemble members include guitarist Daniel Coffeng and bassist Adam Levy and the collective synergy here is an open ended warmth that seems to radiate from whatever devise you may be using to enjoy this stellar recording. There is a haunting zen like quality here, no notes are wasted while the expressionistic quality embraces a Bohemian like vibe more closely with improvisational music recorded some fifty years previous.
This is a conceptual recording. The stroke of genius here is that the concept is that of abstract nothingness. Musical methodology that is strictly in the moment. Creativity that is unbridled, unchecked and not bound by preconceived notions of what something "should" sound like. Artistic comparisons are inherently unfair. Billie Davies compositions sound like Billie Davies. Daniel Coffeng is an incredibly engaging guitarist in the tradition of perhaps a John Abercrombie. Bassist Adam Levy is the soul pumpkin laying down a bass line reminiscent of a Ron Carter. All three artists are uniquely different but the harmonic exploratory conceived here is performed with a deceptively subtle uniformity while remaining abstract enough to attack the listener on a cerebral front. The perfect marriage of simplicity and complexity.
Tracks: Collioure; Meeting Manitas; 12 Volt; Les Landes; Tango For Patti; Grapes, Plums and Tomatoes; Gypsy; La Sieste.
Personnel: Billie Davies: Drums; Daniel Coffeng: Guitar; Adam Levy: Bass
Read all about it...
Bop-N-Jazz: Billie Davies 12 Volt 2013:
The organic essence of improvisational music. The evocative manipulation of sound and silence into a living breathing microcosm of emotion and spontaneous creativity.
Brent Black / www.bop-n-jazz.com
Melodic minimalism...12 Volt is improvisational music stripped down to a bare bones approach of lyrical passion and purpose. Billie Davies is more than a drummer as she possesses compositional skills that have 12 Volt as engaging as perhaps any trio based ensemble working today. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of 12 Volt is that it is a live studio recording. Live studio recordings can be magic or they can be a train wreck.
Strictly as an instrumentalist Billie Davies is one of the more lyrically based drummers in the style of a Max Roach and her work is quickly gaining attention as she was nominated as "Jazz Artist" of the year 2013 by the 23rd annual L.A. Music Awards...The other ensemble members include guitarist Daniel Coffeng and bassist Adam Levy and the collective synergy here is an open ended warmth that seems to radiate from whatever devise you may be using to enjoy this stellar recording. There is a haunting zen like quality here, no notes are wasted while the expressionistic quality embraces a Bohemian like vibe more closely with improvisational music recorded some fifty years previous.
This is a conceptual recording. The stroke of genius here is that the concept is that of abstract nothingness. Musical methodology that is strictly in the moment. Creativity that is unbridled, unchecked and not bound by preconceived notions of what something "should" sound like. Artistic comparisons are inherently unfair. Billie Davies compositions sound like Billie Davies. Daniel Coffeng is an incredibly engaging guitarist in the tradition of perhaps a John Abercrombie. Bassist Adam Levy is the soul pumpkin laying down a bass line reminiscent of a Ron Carter. All three artists are uniquely different but the harmonic exploratory conceived here is performed with a deceptively subtle uniformity while remaining abstract enough to attack the listener on a cerebral front. The perfect marriage of simplicity and complexity.
Personnel: Billie Davies: Drums; Daniel Coffeng: Guitar; Adam Levy: Bass
Saturday, August 17, 2013
BILLIE DAVIES - 2013 Los Angeles Music Awards Nominee for "JAZZ ARTIST OF THE YEAR"
Billie and Mike Davies are very excited to let you know that...
The 23rd Annual Los Angeles Music Awards has nominated BILLIE DAVIES as "JAZZ ARTIST OF THE YEAR" for 2013.
1. Online: On-line voting system at 99 cents per vote, you can buy however many votes you want... http://www.lamusicawards.net/nominees.html.
2. Paper Ballot Voting: Thursday, September 26th, 2013
Event: The 23rd Annual Los Angeles Music Awards Nominee Night Press Event
Date: Thursday, September 26th, 2013
Venue: The Whisky A Go-Go: 8901 Sunset Bl. West Hollywood
Doors Open: 6:30 pm
Panel Discussion: 7:10 to 7:40
Sound bytes for Voting Process Begins @ : 7:45
Performers: 10 sponsored musical acts.
Media Coverage: Liz at emrmedia.com has confirmed well over a dozen members of the international press will be covering your appearance at this event. These include press photo agencies and both local and national paparazzi, print publications, radio and television.
Sponsors: Music Connection Magazine, Shhh! Media, Konocti Harbor & Resort, Impact Promotions, jdmrubbings.com. Aaron Avenue Records, Soundcheck International, Spyder Pop Records, RainboRecords.com, Shelter Hotels.
Format: Over 140 nominees receive 30 second sound bytes played from ALL artists and bands from 40 ballot categories. A paper balloting system is used for this event. The combined fan bases of every nominee is represented at this event. Every paper ballot vote is counted and tallied.
Panelists: Eric Bettelli: Music Connection Magazine Publisher, Brad Mercer: On Air Rock Radio Personality, Liz from EMR Media and Music Industry luminary Steve Resnik.
Billie Davies
~ A Jazz Musician ~
Los Angeles, CA
Tel: (+1) 310.467.2061
Email: Billie@BillieDavies.com
Booking:
Price Rubin & Partners: 1-866-774-7824 | 310-254-7149 / L.A. | 415-504-3654 / S.F.
Email: jp@pricerubin.com | mp@pricerubin.com
Website: http://www.pricerubin.com
Billie Davies on the Web:
Her website: http://www.BillieDavies.com
Her PRK for "all about Love": http://karionpresskits.com/billiedavies/index.html
Her Press Kit for "Billie Davies": http://www.reverbnation.com/rpk/billiedavies
Her blog: http://BillieDavies.blogspot.com
Like her Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/BillieDaviesJazz
Follow her on Twitter: @BillieDavies
Fan her on AllAboutJazz: http://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/musician.php?id=43171
Buy Billie Davies Music:
at CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/thebilliedaviestrio
on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/all-about-love-feat.-tom-bone/id532658118
at Reverbnation: http://www.Reverbnation.com/BillieDavies
~ A Jazz Musician ~
Los Angeles, CA
Tel: (+1) 310.467.2061
Email: Billie@BillieDavies.com
Booking:
Price Rubin & Partners: 1-866-774-7824 | 310-254-7149 / L.A. | 415-504-3654 / S.F.
Email: jp@pricerubin.com | mp@pricerubin.com
Website: http://www.pricerubin.com
Billie Davies on the Web:
Her website: http://www.BillieDavies.com
Her PRK for "all about Love": http://karionpresskits.com/billiedavies/index.html
Her Press Kit for "Billie Davies": http://www.reverbnation.com/rpk/billiedavies
Her blog: http://BillieDavies.blogspot.com
Like her Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/BillieDaviesJazz
Follow her on Twitter: @BillieDavies
Fan her on AllAboutJazz: http://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/musician.php?id=43171
Buy Billie Davies Music:
at CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/thebilliedaviestrio
on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/all-about-love-feat.-tom-bone/id532658118
at Reverbnation: http://www.Reverbnation.com/BillieDavies
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