BENNIE WALLACE

Bennie Wallace, tenor saxophonist, composer and recording artist for more than four decades “is one of the most exciting saxophonists on today’s jazz scene”- DownBeat. With over 25 jazz recordings as a leader, five DownBeat awards, numerous recording awards, Wallace has performed and recorded with many jazz greats, among them: Elvin Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Jimmy Rowles, Chick Corea, Eddie Gomez and Dannie Richmond. He has also shown his southern roots by playing and recording with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dr. John and other blues artists. Wallace is the composer for Oscar-nominated films, among them: Redux Riding Hood and Little Surprises. Composer credits include Blaze starring Paul Newman, Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump, Betty Boop, among others. Wallace is the BackCountry Jazz Artistic and Music Director. “Tenor titan Wallace...gorgeous, big-toned sound, exciting, inventive, and full of the blues.”- DownBeat

DOUG DAVIS

Graduated summa cum laude from the University of Tennessee where he studied composition with David Van Vactor and first met jazz saxophonist Bennie Wallace and the world of improvisation. Given a 5-year teaching fellowship, Davis completed his Ph.D. from Harvard University working with composers Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner. While at Harvard, Leonard Bernstein selected Davis to be a member of the Norton Lectures Discussion Group and his compositions began to be recorded by jazz artists, including guitarist Larry Coryell and Bennie Wallace with Chick Corea. During his 35-year tenure at California State University Bakersfield, he has performed with numerous guest artists, including Grammy winners Michael Brecker and Freddie Hubbard, led his students to national attention and awards, including two Kennedy Center: Betty Carter Awards. His students have recorded with Terence Blanchard, Jason Moran, Thunder Kat, Kamasi Washington, and Tower of Power. Davis, himself, was selected the outstanding professor, directed the California Collegiate All-State Jazz Band, and created multiple concert series of Guest Composers, Legends of Jazz concerts, and for 30 years was the Director of the Bakersfield Jazz Festival, which has given more than a half million dollars in scholarships. He received the WANG Family Excellence Award as an outstanding professor of the entire 23-campus CSU system and was recently inducted into the CSUB Faculty Hall of Fame. Additional awards come from the National Endowment of the Humanities, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, MACRO and Contemporary Recording Society Awards. In 2017, Davis was inducted into the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame, joining more famous inductees: Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Korn.

International performances include Psalm of an Orange Angel by the Hungarian Symphony and Token for voice and orchestra, featured at the Ukrainian “Contrasts” festival. Dust Swirls, then Speaks, written to commemorate the 75th anniversary of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, has been given multiple orchestral performances in England and Scotland. His book Gifts Given was published in 2012, telling the story of his family and community during the 1956 first court-ordered school desegregation in America. Concerning his settings of John Berryman Dream Songs, LA Weekly’s Brandt Reiter states, "Bluesy, playful and malevolent, with strong overtones of Bartók and Berg, the music is jarring, creepy and slyly seductive. And the disc, which I find compulsively listenable, is both appropriately unsettling and a hell of a lot of fun."

Since 2018, the Doug Davis Composition and Performance Endowment annually commissions new works and supports the performance of composers of the past, present, and future. So far, 60 musicians, 7 orchestras, and 8 composers have received endowment support.