Webb’s organic Coltrane
connection—Art Davis
Shortly after graduating from Berklee
and returning to California, Doug had
the good fortune of meeting bassist Art
Davis, who was the featured soloist at a
concert organized by the late Dr. Charles
Rutherford at Orange Coast College.
At the performance, Davis and Webb
were paired on the John Coltrane
composition Naima, a timeless ballad.
“I didn’t know there was anybody out
here that played like that,” Davis told
Doug, adding that “it was great hearing”
him.
Shortly after that concert, Art Davis
moved to Orange County and asked
Webb to help put a band together. Doug
worked with Davis for 17 years after,
frequently playing at the Café
Lido,
where he was often joined by drummer
Paul Kreibich, who fondly chuckled
remembering Davis as a patient man
that tolerated their youthful antics.
“We had a gig every year on Coltrane’s
birthday,” recalls Doug, about the years
he’d spent working with Art Davis—who
had had a long-running collaboration
with the immortal John Coltrane. At
some point, the band was joined by Billy
Higgins and Horace Tapscott, recalls
Doug, who went on to mention that they
played at a lot of festivals but regrettably,
“we never toured and never recorded.”
Art Davis
Playing Coltrane’s music with Art Davis
and Billy Higgins—who had substituted
for Elvin Jones while Coltrane was
alive—gave the music a validity to
Webb’s interpretations, “as opposed to
me going off and trying to sound like
Coltrane.” They were organic to that
music and Doug thinks, in part,
“responsible for the way it sounded.”
“That music has spirituality to it” says
Webb, “having played the music with
Art, really was one of the great
experiences of my life.”