 |  | The Daily Messenger newspaper story
| 7/8/2008 11:35:20 PM - By Stephanie Bergeron, staff writer
Daily Messenger
Thu Dec 27, 2007, 12:33 PM EST
Canandaigua, N.Y. -
Simple enough for the amateur to play, yet complex enough to sound professional. That’s how people describe the music of Tom Davis.
Davis, the K-12 Music Lead Teacher of the Canandaigua City School District, also composes and performs outside the walls of his classroom. He recently released “Lake Songs,” music partly inspired by images of Canandaigua Lake.
“He’s thoughtful,” said Reagan Fletcher, one of Davis’ former students who played drums on this CD. “He doesn’t want to play just to play. He wants to play and really put a lot of thought and care into how the music is structured.”
Davis started playing trumpet in elementary school in the late 1960s. Sometimes, when his parents were out, he would transcribe Louis Armstrong music from his family’s “HI FI” system. By age 10, he was rehearsing in a big band called The Auburn Collegians, sometimes playing lead and solo trumpet.
“I was pretty much bitten by this music thing,” he said.
During his college years at Ithaca College and later for graduate work at Eastman School of Music, Davis worked as a teacher’s assistant for composers who have earned their own fame.
“A lot of times I’ll go to the movies and see that the composers are the students that were in the film scoring or composition classes that I was the teachers assistant” he said. “Many of them have since won Grammy, Emmy or Academy Awards”.
Davis has been published by Kendor music, Warner Brothers Publications etc., but stopped writing for the big publishing companies a few years ago. He said that their need to target the masses and sell as much music as they can to as many people as possible tends to stifle creativity. Now, he focuses on writing under his own label, Tom Davis Music, and composes pieces that have an artist-level sound to them for younger musicians. “It doesn’t sound like high-school-level music,” he said “and that was one of the goals of this CD – to demonstrate that level of artistry and publish these new works”.
Davis has had more than 100 jazz and concert band compositions published and has been commissioned by schools across the country to write original works for their ensembles. He has been a music teacher for 27 years, and said teaching makes him a better musician.
“The old saying is ‘those that can’t do it, teach,” he said. “I always thought that a musician needs to be as diverse as possible in every aspect – and that teaching is a part of that diversity. Teaching makes one complete in their understanding of their subject matter.”
“Lake Songs,” Davis’ debut album, features 16 musicians, several of them Canandaigua Academy graduates. Davis said he chose former students “because they’re great musicians.”
“I could use more if I could get them all in the same place at the same time,” he said.
Michael Bomwell, a former student who has known Davis for the past 10 years, said it’s a natural choice to perform with local musicians. “He likes to feel like he can access a vibrant local music scene,” he said. “It’s a way of reinforcing that whole concept, that western New York and Rochester in particular has these exceptional artists to use.”
The ideas for some of the songs on the CD were inspired by local places too. Photos of Canandaigua Lake by Messenger photographer Rikki Van Camp led Davis to write “Lake Songs Suite.” The piece was originally composed for the Canandaigua jazz ensemble during the 2005-2006 school year. The movement “Swingin on a Swing in the Spring” was inspired by a photo of a young girl swinging toward a blue sky.
“It almost looks as if she’s going to jump off that swing and land on the sun,” said Davis.
Davis used the slopes and direction of light in Van Camp’s photo of Whiskey Point near Canandaigua Lake to write “Slopes and Dots.” “Ducks(sss)!” a more frantic movement, sounds like the chaos of a flock of ducks in another of Van Camp’s photos. The interior of the CD case also features local photos.
“It’s uniquely Canandaigua in so many ways.”
Tom Davis’ CD is available at Phoenix Coffee in Canandaigua, through Apple iTunes on-line music store or at www.cdbaby.com For more information, visit www.tomdavismusic.com.
Contact Stephanie Bergeron at (585)394-0770 ext. 255 or sbergeron@mpnewspapers.com. | | http://www.mpnnow.com/towns/canandaigua/x531354941 |
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 |  |  | | | | | "This music pushes the boundaries and still stays within the big band context that we work with. And Tom has also come up with a way for students and teachers to easily immerse themselves in his music on his site. My own students have really loved playing Tom’s music and I hope other teachers will share it with their students!"
-- Dan Fabricious - NYSSMA Instrumental Jazz Review, April 2006
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| | "These are great pieces - contemporary in style, well crafted works which will I know your high school / college students will really enjoy!"
-- Howard Potter-Eastman School of Music Community Ed Division, Director, Eastman Jazz Educators Jazz Orchestra
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| | "I am always seeking out fresh and innovative material for my high school jazz bands. Tom's new charts are challenging and musically rewarding. The tunes explore new pathways in large ensemble writing, and allow for very personal statements of creativity by the players and their director. I appreciate his "raising the bar," and hope that other writers will be influenced and encouraged by some of the risks Tom has taken with this recent output.
-- Bill Tiberio-Director, Fairport (NY) High Jazz Program and former president, NYS Chapter of IAJE.
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