CAROLINE DAVIS PORTALS
(Booking in North America)
LINEUP:
Caroline Davis Portals (4-5-piece touring lineup):
Caroline Davis- alto saxophone, Marquis Hill- trumpet, Julian Shore- piano, Chris Tordini- bass, Allan Mednard- drums
TOUR:
Oct 17, 2024: Brooklyn, NY @ BRIC Jazz Fest
2025 - Available upon request
2026 - Available upon request
NEW ALBUM:
Portals, Volume 2 - Returning (September 2024 / Intakt Records)
featuring
Caroline Davis: Alto Saxophone
Marquis Hill: Trumpet
Julian Shore: Piano
Chris Tordini: Acoustic Bass
Allan Mednard: Drums
with
Jen Shyu : Voice (Olympian Air, Everlasting Fire, Cover Up)
Julia Easterlin : Voice (Kites)
Mike King : Organ, Rhodes, Synthesizers (Kites)
Nappy Nina : Spoken word (City Flora, Only the Names are Changed Part 2)
Nicole Mitchell : Flute (City Flora, Cover Up)
Alexa Barchini : Voice (Everlasting Fire)
Ben Hoffmann : Synthesizers (Everlasting Fire)
BIO:
PORTALS:
Caroline Davis’ Portals is an immersive sound experience, drawing upon the idea of mourning and ancestral communications as textural entities. The music has been mindfully written to offer connections to Caroline’s ancestors, biological and chosen, who have transitioned, and the elements they liked to explore through the life-cycle portal. Through this music, the ensemble engages in the connective tissue between dual and non-dual realms of existence. The ensemble at this performance will present a combination of original pieces from Portals, Volume 1: Mourning (Sunnyside, 2021) and Portals, Volume 2: Returning (Intakt, 2024).
CAROLINE DAVIS:
Mobile since her birth in Singapore, composer, saxophonist, and vocalist Caroline Davis’s expression covers a wide range of styles, owed to her shifting environment as a child. From angular, melody-present instrumental outfits to soulful, quirky song writing, Caroline’s persona is recognizably present. As an improviser and saxophonist, she has released six albums under her name and has won Downbeat Critic’s Poll Rising Star. Through the years, her work continues to garner praise in domestic and international publications.
Davis has shared musical moments with Lee Konitz, Angelica Sanchez, The Femme Jam, Matt Mitchell, Terry Riley, Miles Okazaki, Thana Alexa, and Billy Kaye, among many others. She regularly sings and writes songs with the experimental R&B band, My Tree. Her composition work has led her to be a resident fellow at MacDowell, The Jazz Gallery, and ICE Ensemble Evolution; and she was awarded Jerome Hill, CMA, and NYFA fellowships. Her compositions integrate science and music, influenced by her Ph.D in Music Cognition. Caroline is an advocate for gender equity (This Is A Movement, The New School) and abolition (Justice for Keith Lamar).
VIDEOS:
PREVIOUS ALBUMS:
PRESS:
"Davis' dark-toned alto saxophone gently spins pensive melodic lines…” (Ed Enright, Downbeat Magazine)
"Her long-lined improvisations offer fascinating development of ideas, and she has a marvelous way of floating above the time without losing her connection with the ground beat." (Thomas Cunniffe, Jazz History Online)
"One of the city's strongest and most exciting jazz saxophonists." (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader)
"Caroline improvises with a balance of passion and polish that younger horn players often lack” (Neil Tesser, Chicago Reader)
“Like many of the city’s jazz players, Caroline Davis, a saxophonist and composer, has protested at several Brooklyn and Manhattan rallies in recent weeks. Ms. Davis co-teaches a course in jazz and gender at the New School and feels a responsibility to honor jazz’s history of protest. “I feel that, as Nina Simone said, it’s the artist’s job to reference the time in which we live,” she said.” (Alan Scherstuhl, NY Times)
“Davis’s catalog is a uniquely diverse set of recordings that reflect both regional specificity and personal innovation.” (Martin Johnson, Bandcamp Daily)
“The sprawling intimacy Davis and her cohorts conjure on Portals invokes her understanding of the word itself” (Stephanie Jones, Downbeat)