A.D. 1951: Anthony Davis 75

Anthony Davis Quintet - Hocket In the Pocket

So here's what happened, I swear.

Originally I was trying to get out ahead of February, and I sort of frontloaded it up to the 15th with no idea about anything after that.

When I started to post it all, I realized that I had completely omitted anything related to February's status as Black History Month, and was instead putting up five things that were so white, you couldn't have seen them in a blizzard with night vision goggles on.

This bugged me so badly I went ahead and constructed four more posts -- a whole, additional month's worth -- to right that wrong, of which this is #1.

And an appropriate milestone birthday post it is, if I dare say so myself.

See, once, about 35 years ago in NYC, I was taken to a performance of this really unusual, striking opera presentation constructed around the life of Malcolm X.

It featured a score by its creator, which was uncategorizable in its scope, pulling in elements across all culture to make the experience of it far beyond your average Lincoln Center, Puccini night on the tonk.

Anyway this was the way in which I was introduced to the musical multiverse of Anthony Davis, a composer and musician so hard to categorize, he almost needs his own section in the record store.

Equal parts Classical, Jazz and Avant Garde in his approach and output, I wouldn't even know how to describe what he does except to say that it's 101% American, and that Anthony Davis is as criminally undersung a figure of American music as has come across in our epoch.

Let's time travel back to a festival in Switzerland 45 years and get a small taste of what this huge creative mind had his guys up to back then.

Anthony Davis Quintet

Willisau Jazz Festival 1981

Festhalle

Willisau, Switzerland

8.30.1981

01 Lady of the Mirrors/band introductions

02 Fugitive of Time 

03 Past Lives

04 Wayang No. 4 (Under the Double Moon)

05 A Walk Through the Shadow

06 Hocket In the Pocket

Total Time: 1:16:17

Anthony Davis - piano

Marty Ehrlich - clarinet, bass clarinet & flute 

Terry King - violin

Rick Rozie - bass

Pheeroan akLaff - drums

off-air FM master capture of indeterminate origin, taped from DDR1 radio in East Germany

edited, denoised & remastered by EN, February 2026
399 MB FLAC/direct link

I'll be right back either tomorrow or Sunday with the next BHM treat, this time venturing back to the Motherland for a tribute to a recently departed icon of African sounds.

But before I do that, I wanted to make sure Anthony Davis -- born this day in 1951 and still challenging the boundaries we've decided exist in our minds and in music -- got some much deserved respect, despite his career-long defiance of expectation and category.--J.