When Nathan Davis started as director of jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh, he initially said that he would give it three years.
Not only he ended up staying 44 years, but early in his tenure he established a tradition that endures to this day — a jazz seminar unique in the United States and duplicated in only a few places in the world.
Mr. Davis, 81, considered a pioneer in jazz education at the tertiary level, died Sunday of natural causes, according to his son Pierre. He had been living in Palm Beach, Fla. and also been a resident of Bradford Woods.
Mr. Davis, a native of Kansas City, Kan. who played primarily tenor and soprano saxophone, earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Kansas, where he befriended a 7-foot-1 jazz DJ named Wilt Chamberlain. After college, he went into the Army, playing in service bands in Europe, where after his discharge he stayed for a number of years due to the demand for live jazz.
At the encouragement of trumpeter Donald Byrd, another expatriate American musician then living in Europe, Mr. Davis took the Pitt job in 1969, starting the jazz studies department and eventually earning a doctorate in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.
READ MORE: Ten facts about Nathan Davis (1937-2018)
The next year, when Art Blakey brought his Jazz Messengers, of which Davis had been one, to the Crawford Grill, he invited Mr. Davis to sit in. While there Mr. Davis got the idea to bring the band to campus to talk about jazz, and to Mr. Davis’ surprise, Mr. Blakey accepted.
More formal planning took place the next year, and the jazz seminar, which consists of master classes with top-flight musicians and business and historical discussions and culminates in a concert, considered a once-in-a-lifetime jam session, on the first Saturday of every November, was born.
According to Don Franklin, who at times headed the music department at Pitt, Mr. Davis “took [starting the program] as a challenge and gave his all — he had a missionary zeal in making jazz an academic subject, making jazz part of the university curriculum.”
In part because of his overseas work, “he was a pioneer in bringing jazz to academia. He brought a national profile of the study of jazz. By the time he retired he established the Ph.D. program — it was one of the few in the country, and now it’s attracting students nationally and internationally,” Mr. Franklin said.
Mr. Davis’ other achievements at Pitt were legion. Among other things, he also created the Sonny Rollins International Jazz Archives; the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame, which features plaques of musicians and artifacts displayed in the William Pitt Union; founded the Pitt Jazz Ensemble, comprising student musicians; built the William R. Robinson Recording Studio, located in Pitt’s Bellefield Hall.
He also composed “Jazzopera: Just Above My Head,” an operatic fusion of jazz, gospel, Western classical music and modern dance.
Pierre Davis, a lawyer who lives outside London, described his father as “my best friend — he gave everything for his family. All throughout my life he was a solid life — he was all you could ask for [in a father].” While Pierre Davis didn’t follow his father into music, the elder Mr. Davis said about a grandson who was playing guitar, “He’s got it.”
Bassist Abraham Laboriel, a veteran of thousands of recording sessions, mostly in Los Angeles, over the past four decades, recalled Mr. Davis as giving him his first major recording credit, called “Nathan Davis — Introducing Abraham Laboriel.” They had met during the mid-1970s at Oberlin College, where Mr. Laboriel was teaching part-time, when Mr. Davis came up for a workshop and asked Mr. Laboriel to be part of the backing band.
“It was one of the most significant jazz recordings of my life,” Mr. Laboriel said. “That just opened all kinds of doors,” including trip to Bahrain and South America where Mr. Davis invited Mr. Laboriel to perform.
They remained fairly close afterwards, with Mr. Laboriel one of the regular performers at the seminar.
“I got to meet everybody — Clark Terry, Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard,” he said, just a few of the hundreds of musicians who participated over the years. “Through the seminar I played with the Who’s Who in jazz — I just look at the names I feel so blessed I was able to talk to and learn from these people through 40 years.”
Even in retirement, Mr. Davis stayed focused upon the future of the music.
“In the hospital bed,” his son said, when it appeared that he wouldn’t make the Ravinia jazz festival near Chicago, “he said, ‘You gotta call Jaron Jackson — he’s gonna be on it.’ “He always was thinking of the musicians of the next generation and helping them become great.”
In addition to his son, Mr. Davis is survived by his wife, the former Ursula Broschke; a daughter Joyce, of Chadds Ford, Montgomery County; three grandchildren; and a brother Raymond of Indianapolis. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Rick Nowlin: rnowlin@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3871.
First Published: April 12, 2018, 9:23 p.m.
