We can celebrate and mourn at the same time, and the combination feels right today, because Eddy Davis — imaginative, unpredictable, magical, mysterious — would have been eighty today, September 26, 2020. Yes, he went away, but he is never far from us.
Eddy Davis and Conal Fowkes, Cafe Bohemia, Dec. 26, 2019.
I offer a triple homage: to Eddy, his hand a blur, his mouth open in song; to Jelly Roll Morton; to the good old New York that we had before the pandemic so altered our lives. Here are Eddy and friends, Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Evan Arntzen, clarinet; Conal Fowkes, string bass, at Cafe Bohemia, 15 Barrow Street, Greenwich Village, New York, where joy flourished regularly:
I look forward to a future where we can once again gather joyously. How I’ll bring my easy chair along is a problem, but perhaps they can be provided.
May your happiness increase!
