Davis Weiss is a jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 trumpeter and the founder of The New Jazz Composers Octet

The New Jazz Composers Octet

The New Jazz Composers Octet is an all-acoustic jazz ensemble founded by trumpeter/arranger David Weiss in 1996. NPR's Josh Jackson described them as "part New York hustle and part writer's workshop, all of it redolent with the aroma of newness." The title track of The Turning Gate won the group...

, a group dedicated to innovation in jazz. He studied music at North Texas State University, graduating in 1986. Returning to New York, he performed with Jaki Byard

Jaki Byard

Jaki Byard was an American jazz pianist and composer who also played trumpet and saxophone, among several other instruments. He was noteworthy for his eclectic style, incorporating everything from ragtime and stride to free jazz...

, Frank Foster

Frank Foster

Frank Rowbotham Foster was a Warwickshire and England all-rounder whose career was cut short by an accident during World War I...

, and Jimmy Heath

Jimmy Heath

James Edward Heath , nicknamed Little Bird, is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger. He is the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.-Biography:...

. He continued his studies with trumpeters Tommy Turrentine

Tommy Turrentine

Thomas Walter Turrentine, Jr. was a swing and hard bop trumpeter of the 1940s to 1960s, the older brother of saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.-Biography:...

 and Bill Hardman

Bill Hardman

William Franklin Hardman, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist who chiefly played hard bop.-Biography:...

, as well as attending Barry Harris

Barry Harris

Barry Doyle Harris is an American bebop jazz pianist and educator.-Biography:Harris left Detroit for New York City in 1960...

's jazz classes. Eventually leading an "After Hours" session for Harris, he performed with such musicians as Stephen Scott

Stephen Scott

Stephen Scott is an American composer best known for his development of the bowed piano , which involves a grand piano being played by an ensemble of ten musicians who utilize lengths of horsehair, nylon filament, and other utensils to bow the strings of the piano, creating an orchestra-like...

, Winard Harper

Winard Harper

Hiram Winard Harper is an American jazz drummer.Harper played in the 1980s with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, and Betty Carter, the last for four years. While working with Carter he met Wycliffe Gordon, with whom he would collaborate repeatedly...

, Leon Parker

Leon Parker

Leon Parker is a jazz percussionist and composer. He studied drums from age 11 and had classical training in his teens. He went on to study jazz under the tutelage of Barry Harris. His recording debut would be with Harvie S, His first wife Lisa is a flautist and he had worked with her musically...

, Sam Newsome

Sam Newsome

Sam Newsome is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. His music combines an eclectic mix of straight-ahead jazz, world music and extended techniques...

, Justin Robinson

Justin Robinson

-Early life:Robinson played for the Brixton TopCats before moving to the United States to attended high school at the Blair Academy. As a junior he would lead Blair to a Mid-Atlantic Prep League title and was named to the All-MAPL first team.-College career:...

, Rodney Kendrick

Rodney Kendrick

Rodney Kendrick is an American jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, and producer. He has been described as a "hard swinging player and composer with a delightful Monkish wit and drive."-Biography:...

, Roy Hargrove

Roy Hargrove

Roy Anthony Hargrove is an American jazz trumpeter. He won worldwide notice after winning two Grammy Awards for differing types of music, in 1997, and in 2002...

, Clifford Jordan

Clifford Jordan

Clifford Laconia Jordan was a jazz saxophone player. While in Chicago, he performed with Max Roach, Sonny Stitt, and some rhythm and blues groups. He moved to New York City in 1957, after which he recorded three albums for Blue Note. He also recorded with Horace Silver, J.J. Johnson, Kenny...

, Mulgrew Miller

Mulgrew Miller

Mulgrew Miller is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.-Biography:...

, Jeff Watts, Terence Blanchard

Terence Blanchard

Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, and film score composer. Since he emerged on the scene in 1980 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and then shortly thereafter with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Blanchard has been a leading artist in jazz...

, Benny Green

Benny Green

Benny Green was a British jazz saxophonist, who was best known by the public for his radio shows and books.- Early life :...

, and Billy Hart

Billy Hart

William "Billy" Hart is a jazz drummer and educator who has performed with some of the most important jazz musicians in history.-Biography:Early on Hart performed in Washington, D.C...

.

In 1990, Weiss started a band with tenor saxophonist Craig Handy

Craig Handy

Craig Mitchell Handy is an American post-bop tenor saxophonist.Born in Oakland, California, Handy attended North Texas State University from 1981 to 1984, and following this played with Art Blakey, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Haynes, Abdullah Ibrahim, Elvin Jones, Joe Henderson, Betty Carter, George...

. The rest of the band rotated: Benny Green, Stephen Scott, or Dave Kikoski on piano, Christian McBride

Christian McBride

Christian McBride is an American jazz bassist. His father, Lee Smith, and his great uncle, Howard Cooper, are well known Philadelphia bassists who served as McBride's early mentors...

 on bass, and Billy Hart or Jeff Watts on drums. Weiss assisted Handy with the music of The Cosby Mysteries

The Cosby Mysteries

The Cosby Mysteries is a American television mystery series that starred Bill Cosby. It was the first television series to star Cosby since The Cosby Show and lasted only one season...

, including arranging the title theme. From there, he began arranging for such artists as Abbey Lincoln

Abbey Lincoln

Anna Marie Wooldridge , better known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was a jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. Lincoln was unusual in that she wrote and performed her own compositions, expanding the expectations of jazz audiences.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, she was one of many...

, Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard

Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...

, and Rodney Kendrick

Rodney Kendrick

Rodney Kendrick is an American jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, and producer. He has been described as a "hard swinging player and composer with a delightful Monkish wit and drive."-Biography:...

, Alto Legacy with Phil Woods

Phil Woods

Philip Wells Woods is an American jazz bebop alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader and composer.-Biography:...

, Vincent Herring

Vincent Herring

Vincent Herring is an American jazz hard bop and post-bop saxophonist and flautist.-Biography:Herring's formal musical education began at age 11, when he started playing saxophone in school bands and studying privately at Dean Frederick's School Of Music in Vallejo, California...

, and Antonio Hart

Antonio Hart

Antonio Hart is a jazz alto saxophonist. He attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, studied with Andy McGhee at Berklee College of Music, and has a master's degree from Queens College, City University of New York. His initial training was classical, but he switched to jazz in college...

. He arranged an album called Haunted Melodies in tribute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...

, as well as tribute concerts at Birdland

Birdland

Birdland may refer to:In music:* Birdland , a club in New York City* Birdland, a jazz club in Vienna founded by Joe Zawinul* "Birdland" , an instrumental composed by Joe Zawinul, originally recorded by his band Weather Report...

 for Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard

Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...

, Booker Little

Booker Little

Booker Little, Jr was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.-Biography:Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz. Stylistically, his sound is rooted in the playing of Clifford Brown, featuring crisp articulation, a burnished...

, and Lee Morgan

Lee Morgan

Edward Lee Morgan was an American hard bop trumpeter.-Biography:...

.

Recognizing a dearth of new jazz composition, Weiss founded The New Jazz Composers Octet

The New Jazz Composers Octet

The New Jazz Composers Octet is an all-acoustic jazz ensemble founded by trumpeter/arranger David Weiss in 1996. NPR's Josh Jackson described them as "part New York hustle and part writer's workshop, all of it redolent with the aroma of newness." The title track of The Turning Gate won the group...

, which Ben Ratliff of The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

immediately hailed as "the sound of the new jazz mainstream." Weiss's compositions on the Octet's second album won him grants from Chamber Music America and Doris Duke

Doris Duke

Doris Duke was an American heiress, horticulturalist, art collector, and philanthropist.-Family and early life:...

 Jazz Ensembles Project: New Works Creation and Presentation.

Weiss released his first album as leader, Breathing Room, in 2002, featuring Craig Handy, Xavier Davis

Xavier Davis

Xavier Davis is a jazz pianist who leads the "Xavier Davis Trio." He currently teaches at the Juilliard School in New York City....

, Dwayne Burno, Marcus Strickland

Marcus Strickland

Marcus Strickland is a jazz soprano, alto and tenor saxophonist who grew up in Miami, Florida who currently lives in New York...

, and E.J. Strickland, some of whom are involved with the Octet. It received four star ratings from Downbeat Magazine, JazzWise

Jazzwise

Jazzwise Publications Limited is a UK-based specialist jazz music publisher and education company. It was founded in 1984 as a mail-order company promoting jazz and improvisation through catalogues and short courses and workshops for musicians...

, and 52nd Street.

as leader

• Breathing Room (Fresh Sound Records, 2002)
• "Snuck In" with Point of Departure
  Point of Departure
  Point of Departure is an album by jazz pianist and composer Andrew Hill, released on the Blue Note label. The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek calls the album "a stellar date, essential for any representative jazz collection, and a record that, in the 21st century, still points the way to the future...
  
   (Sunnyside Records
  Sunnyside Records
  Sunnyside Records is an American jazz record label.Sunnyside was founded in 1982 by Francois Zalacain and Christine Berthet. Its early releases consisted primarily of piano solo material and ensembles without drums, but in later years has broadened its selection of material.-Artists who have...
  
  , 2010)

with The New Jazz Composers Octet

The New Jazz Composers Octet

The New Jazz Composers Octet is an all-acoustic jazz ensemble founded by trumpeter/arranger David Weiss in 1996. NPR's Josh Jackson described them as "part New York hustle and part writer's workshop, all of it redolent with the aroma of newness." The title track of The Turning Gate won the group...

• First Steps into Realty (Fresh Sound/New Talent, 1998)
• Walkin' the Line (Fresh Sound/New Talent, 2003)
• The Turning Gate (Motéma Music
  Motéma Music
  Motéma Music is an American record label focused on jazz and world music, as well as other creative projects by virtuosic musicians who also compose. It was founded by Jana Herzen in 2003, and is now based in Harlem, New York City...
  
  , 2008)