Nathan Tate Davis was in Paris from 1963 until 1969, living at No. 67, rue Saint Jacques on the Left Bank. He had finished his service in the U.S. Army in Berlin at the end of 1962 and decided to stay on in Europe.

He met Kenny Clarke for the first time while the drummer was on tour in Germany, and when Klook returned to Paris, he wrote to Davis inviting him to join him for an engagement at the Club St. Germain.

"It was supposed to be a three month gig, " Nathan recalls, "but we stayed for almost a year."

In Paris, Nathan worked in most of the clubs, notably at the "Chat qui pêche" with Eric Dolphy, Donald Byrd and, later, a band which included Woody Shaw, the late organist/pianist Larry Young and drummer Billy Brooks. He has played with Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Elvin Jones, the Ray Charles Band and the orchestra of Kurt Edelhagen.

Born in Kansas City on February 15th, 1937, Nathan Davis first took up saxophone in high school after starting out on trombone. He had early professional experience with the band of Jay McShann and then joined the (almost) all-girl band of Tiny Davis. "I'm one of the few men," Nathan says, "who can claim to have been one of the Sweethearts of Rhythm!"

While studying at the University of Kansas, Davis led his own band which included trumpeter Carmell Jones and Donald Dean on drums. For four years Davis gigged around Kansas City, playing mostly college dates and then, in 1960, he was drafted into the Army and posted to Europe. While stationed in Berlin, he played with trumpeter Benny Bailey and drummer Joe Harris.

In 1969 Davis returned to the United States to join the University of Pittsburgh as professor of music and director of jazz studies. He holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, Connecticut, and is the founder and director of the University of Pittsburgh Annual jazz Seminar.A brilliant multi-instrumentalist - Davis plays all the reed instruments and has recently taken up fluegelhorn - he is a prolific composer, with more than 200 pieces to his credit, including an opera entitled "Just Above My Head." He is also a talented arranger and the author of "Writings In jazz," a scholarly analysis of the history and development of the music.

Biography by Mike Hennessey