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
An ode to Manitas De Plata, Django Reinhardt and all Gypsies, Tsiganes, Manouche and Bohemians all over the world. An Ode to Nature and The Universal Energy of Music.
Musicians:
Billie Davies on Drums, Daniel Coffeng on Guitar, Adam Levy on Bass.
Genre: Avant Garde Jazz
Recording Studio: 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.
Photography: Inez Lewis.
Release Date: 10/10/2013.
"The whole idea for "12 VOLT" started as we were feeling ready to move away from Hollywood and wanted a return to nature and a little more simplicity. The home/studio in Napa, California seemed the perfect suited place for the "12 VOLT" conception, as it is wine country, as well as being very much similar to some of the Wine regions in France, especially the Bordeaux regions around the city of Bordeaux, bordering and into Basque country on the atlantic ocean side, where I also ended up living with the Gypsies and so very close to nature... From coast to coast in the south of Europe, from Perpignan to Barcelona, from Montpellier to Toulouse and to Biarritz and La Rochelle and then into the Bordeaux region, that is where I lived the most fulfilling natural bohemian life and performed and toured with all kinds of musicians, one in particular, Claude Mazet, an amazing blues and jazz guitar player made it so that everything electric in the RV ran on 12 volt, it is also that country where I ended up living for months with a gypsy clan and ended up having to play for their King's ears only over 2 bottles of wine and Django and noone else allowed in his van, which stirred up a lot of envy and anger with some of the clan members. It is that bohemian life, that close to nature life, so close that all the music, and everything else you do or think becomes, is a reflection of it, that I lived all over the south of Europe and that all the songs on the album "12 VOLT" are inspired by, remembering my gypsy life I still love so so much..." Billie Davies.
Jazz and Avant Garde drummer and band leader Billie Davies is mostly an autodidact whose natural talent, relentless, explorative spirit and multifaceted experiences have led to an innovative approach to jazz. With a background in Classical and Jazz and a lifetime of musical experiences in jams, performances, recordings and music production, the listener is treated to jazz inclinations within her ensembles that bristle with cutting-edge freshness. Billie has played Jazz, Improvisational Jazz, Avant-Jazz and Avant Garde with Leroy Vinegar, John Handy, Joe Fuentes, Saul Kaye (on Cobra Basemento, Dreams), Mike Godwin (on Cobra Basemento, Dreams), Lee Elfenbein (on Dreams), Drew Waters, Pierre Swärd, Tom Bone Ralls (on all about Love.), Manny Silvera, Oliver Steinberg (on all about Love.), Daniel Coffeng (on 12 VOLT), Adam Levy (on 12 VOLT), Will Mack, et al and had guest appearances all over the Northern West Coast. It is these experiences that have shaped Billie into the intuitive and inventive drummer she is today. Her playing style reminds us a lot of Billy Hart.
Belgium native and Los Angeles based drummer Billie Davies continues to forge her own path in the improvised music world. Endowed with an explorative temperament and unique, yet definite swing sense, Davies pays homage to Gypsy musicians on her fourth release as a leader, 12 VOLT.
Just to be clear, this is not an album reinterpreting guitarist Django Reinhardt's tunes or anyone else's for that matter.
Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz.
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.”
S Victor Aaron, Something Else!
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.CJ Bond, JAZZ MUSIC
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