From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Mon Jan 14, 2002  1:16 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Maxwell Davis
 
MAXWELL DAVIS (By Dave Penny)

Born Thomas Maxwell Davis, Jr., 14 January 1916, Independence, Kansas
Died 18 September 1970, Los Angeles, California.

Saxophonist/pianist/organist/composer/r&b bandleader. One of the unsung
heroes of West Coast jump and r&b, Davis began by studying piano and violin
as a child in Kansas. By the age of 12 he was also studying tenor saxophone
and it would be this instrument for which he would become famous. By the age
of 15 he had formed his own group and began playing school dances throughout
Kansas and within two years he had left school and joined Gene Coy's
territory band. In 1937 he headed west to California for a job playing sax
and arranging in Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra and by the mid 1940s was
playing in San Francisco with Jake Porter's Combo, headlining at Jazz At The
Philharmonic and immersing himself in the flourishing independent record
label scene, working as musician/bandleader/arranger/talent scout with Black
& White, 4Star, Aladdin, Modern, Specialty, Capitol, Imperial, Miltone and
many smaller concerns. Worked extensively with Amos Milburn (1946-52), Gene
Phillips (1947-50), Charles Brown (1951-53), B.B. King (1953-56) and Johnny
"Guitar" Watson (1955-56), and he was a member of Jay McShann's band in
1949/50 and Louis Jordan's Tympany Five in 1953. In the late 1950s he
largely abandoned the tenor sax in favour of the piano but continued to
arrange and direct sessions for the Biharis at Kent and Crown. He pursued
his own small recording career on Pacific, Miltone, RPM/Modern, Aladdin and
Crown and his many compositions include "Bad Bad Whiskey", "Bim Bam", "Hot
Little Mama", "Tired, Broke and Busted", "Eddie My Love" and "Dark Is The
Night".