Kris Davis

Pianist-composer Kris Davis has blossomed as one of the singular talents on the New York jazz scene, a resolutely individual artist who offers “uncommon creative adventure,” according to Jazz Times. The Vancouver-born, Brooklyn-residing Davis was dubbed one of the music’s top up-and-comers in a 2012 New York Times article titled “New Pilots at the Keyboard,” with the newspaper saying: “One method for deciding where to hear jazz on a given night has been to track down the pianist Kris Davis.”

To date, Davis has released ten recordings as leader. Her 2016 release, Duopoly, features a series of duos with Bill Frisell, Craig Taborn and Marcus Gilmore among others. Duopoly made The New York Times, Pop Matters, NPR, LA Times, and Jazz Times best albums of 2016.

As a collaborator, Davis performs as a member of John Zorn’s bagatelles project, is known for her ongoing work with the trio Paradoxical Frog with drummer Tyshawn Sorey and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and performs in a duo with Craig Taborn. As a sideperson, Davis can be heard with such artists as Terri Lyne Carrington, Michael Formanek’s ensemble Kolossus, The Distance, Eric Revis’s trio, City of Asylum with Andrew Cyrille, Kermit Driscoll’s Reveille, Ingrid Laubrock’s Anti-house and Tom Rainey’s standards album, Obbligato. Davis was voted Rising Star pianist in the 2017 annual Critics Poll. She received a Doris Duke Impact award in 2015 and multiple commissions to compose new works from The Shifting Foundation, The Jazz Gallery/Jerome Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Rory Cowal is from Maryland. He has since lived in Colorado where he studied with Art Lande and was a member of Gamelan Tunas Mekar; Los Angeles where he studied at California Institute of the Arts, premiered countless new works as part of a thriving new music and modern jazz scene, and served as treasurer of the board for a bicycle collective; and Vancouver, BC where he currently resides.  As a teacher he has served on the faculty at Glendale Community College as a jazz instructor, and at the Harmony Project as the music director of a youth orchestra.