Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis


Edward F. Davis, known professionally as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.

Biography

Davis played with Cootie Williams, Lucky Millinder, Andy Kirk, Eddie Bonnemere, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie, as well as leading his own bands and making many recordings as a leader. He played in the swing, bop, hard bop, Latin jazz, and soul jazz genres. Some of his recordings from the 1940s also could be classified as rhythm and blues.
His 1946 band, Eddie Davis and His Beboppers, featured Fats Navarro, Al Haig, Huey Long, Gene Ramey and Denzil Best.
In the 1950s, he was playing with Sonny Stitt, while from 1960 to 1962, he and fellow tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin led a quintet. From the mid-1960s, Davis and Griffin also performed together as part of The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, along with other, mainly European, jazz musicians.
Davis died of Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer in Culver City, California, at the age of 64.

Discography

As leader/co-leader

With Mildred Anderson
With Count Basie
With Billy Butler
  • Don't Be That Way
With Benny Carter
  • Wonderland
With the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band
  • Sax No End
With Arnett Cobb
  • Blow Arnett, Blow – also released as Go Power!!!
With Gene "Mighty Flea" Conners
  • Coming Home
With Wild Bill Davis
  • All Right OK You Win
With Harry Edison
  • Just Friends
  • Edison's Lights
With Red Garland
With Dizzy Gillespie
  • The Dizzy Gillespie Big 7
With Al Grey
  • Shades of Grey
With Tiny Grimes
  • Callin' the Blues
With Coleman Hawkins
  • Night Hawk
With Jo Jones
  • The Main Man
With Quincy Jones
  • Golden Boy
With Al Smith
  • Hear My Blues – with Shirley Scott; also released as Blues Shout!
With Sonny Stitt'