Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
Harold Davis - File
HAROLD DAVIS is to a concert what the composite of a pilot, chief flight attendant and ground staff would be to an aeroplane.
From his perch behind the keyboards, normally set up front and right of the band, facing the audience, Davis is as much compere as singer and musician, charting the course of the set, providing in-flight information and keeping the musical passengers happy.
In fact, it may be a matter of passing on his own happiness, as before he sings, many times while he sings and definitely after he sings, Harold Davis wears a near beatific smile. And to go with smile and song are often quips that prompt laughter from musicians and spectators alike.
He would, apparently, have it no other way.
"Me firmly believe music is a communication tool. If you not communicating you not doing anything. If you not changing someone's mind and attitude at a particular moment positively, yu nah do nutten," Davis tells The Sunday Gleaner.
His dismissal of the school of thought that the higher a musician is over the heads of the listeners the more elevated his or her status, is not the almost reflexive 'studiration beat education' response of the defiantly unschooled.
STARTED AT AGE SEVEN
Like his brothers, one older the other younger, and an older sister, Davis started the Royal Music programme at seven years old, doing violin and trumpet along with piano and going up to grade six.
And his practical attitude to customer satisfaction should serve him well in his other job, as executive director of the Jamaica Business Development Centre on Camp Road, St. Andrew.
"I am good at what I do in the day and I enjoy it. I am blessed to have two strong professional interests that I love. What I love about what I do in the day is that I get to help people develop," Davis said.
Even before the night and day jobs, the moonlight and daylight activities respectively, had a comfortable relationship in Davis' life, he was balancing music and academics. Music has been a constant through Harbour View Primary, Excelsior High, EXED (where he also eventually taught maths and biology) and the University of the West Indies (UWI), from which he graduated with an industrial engineering degree in the late 1980s.
ARRANGED MUSIC
Although the programme was not as structured as it is now, "performing arts were always a big part of EXED life", Davis said, remembering Richard Ffolkes and Derrick Barnett among those who 'passed through' in the earlier days, as well as Ruff Kut band member Nigel Staff, gospel music producer and keyboard player Dennis Rushton and producer Stephen 'Lenky' Marsden among the students when he was a teacher. At one point he was musical arranger for the St. Andrew Folk Singers, founded at EXED.
"Right through I have been involved in one group or the other," he said.
Music education also continued, as while a student at EXED Davis did Contemporary Jazz and voice training at the School of Music.
After a year on the UWI's Mona campus it was off to St. Agustine and more music. "In Trinidad we took the campus music to another level," he said. And, naturally, the beat of the steel pan was added to the reggae of 'yard', the jazz of the School of Music, the reverential music of church and the classical of the Royal Music School training.
"Wha! I am a soca baby. You can't go to Trinidad and not absorbed in the soca. I must say that the fast one is not my thing. I like the melodic ones," he said, naming Kitchener, Rudder and Shadow among his favourites. The Trinidad experience came in handy back in Jamaica when, as a part of the band E=MC2, Davis played in the Oakridge Carnival as that wound down in the mid-1990s.
Many years earlier, as the 1980s began, he was tapping to a more overtly worshipful beat as part of the Musical Mandate outfit, doing reggae gospel on the United Church circuit all over the island long before rockers were accepted through the Pearly Gates. Jazz became a larger part of Davis' life when he moved to Mandeville in 1988, after returning from Trinidad, and as part of Mandeville Jazz played monthly at Merrymakers (now Fayors Entertainment Centre). On returning to his home city in 1992 and forming E=MC2 "that's when the cabaret career
really started", with regular dates at north coast hotels. There was also a trio that played on Wednesdays at the Hilton. Stints in Sweat, playing "for a whole heap of artiste at Sunsplash", with Sonny Bradshaw's Big Band ("Sonny is an excellent teacher") and Errol Lee and the Bare Essentials added to the reggae of 'yard', the jazz of the School of Music, the reverential music of church and the classical of the Royal Music School training.
And still, with all this music, it was still a matter of balancing daylight and moonlight, Davis being a full-time musician for only about 18 months after coming back to Kingston from Mandeville.
HOUSE-BOUND
Another kind of moonlight came into the picture as one millennium slipped into another when Davis found himself house-bound in December, which would normally be the busiest month for a performer. "I said I needed to provide an avenue where I could perform that did not have the pressures of a commercial gig, an avenue where you can perform and relax and jam with your brethrens," he said.
A call to Ed Gallimore secured a frontyard venue and 'Moonlighting' was born. Among those on that first concert were John Jones, Marjorie Whylie, Leonie Forbes, Pat Gooden, Christine Fisher, Myrna Hague, Ian Hird and, of course, Davis.
The response at the "very impromptu" concert was tremendous and it became an every other month affair, held on the Sunday closest to when the moon made a full target for the howls encouraged throughout the night by (who else?) Harold Davis. "Because of the relaxed atmosphere you got the best performances," Davis said.
A full moon also brought on a full heart and, as the event grew, "we decided to do something more with it". The performers chose a charity and donations were made from money given voluntarily by audience members at the free event. The Red Cross, Optimist Club and Music Department at the Salvation Army School for the Blind were among the recipients.
"As it grew costs were incurred. We decided to charge, make it more formal, make it more structured," he said. One thing which did not change, though, as the concert series stopped roaming from various frontyards at settled at Devon House's east lawn, was the standard of performance. "One thing we maintain at 'Moonlighting', the quality of the entertainment has to be at a certain level," Davis said.
The first trip to the new venue was in late 2002 and on May 14 'Moonlighting' returned there, beginning a four-concert stint across the island with concerts in Mandeville, Montego Bay and, in December, back in Kingston again. The charity effort this time is establishing music therapy in various institutions.
GREW UP IN THE CHURCH
Harold Davis, who despite being on the first of the Jamaica Pegasus' 'Jazz In The Gardens' series, still does not consider himself a jazz musician, has some musical treatment to adminster to himself, a refresher of sorts at the School of Music a distinct possibility. "The things I would like to hear myself play, I don't hear them yet," he said.
There is one place, though, where the music goes to a higher audience. "I grew up in the church and my mother still gets me to play (at St. Boniface Anglican, Harbour View) every Sunday. It is still a very, very important part of my life," Harold Davis said.
