Brian Slattery Photos
Chris “Big Dog” Davis.
Delores Willams and Lauren Anderson of the Whalley Avenue community bookstore People Get Ready beamed in front of the small, rapt audience seated in front of them Sunday evening.
“Give yourselves a hand,” Williams said. “We’re so grateful that you’re here.”
The bookstore, she said, was getting ready to reopen after a “long, necessary hiatus” — but before that, it hosted a concert by beloved musician Chris “Big Dog” Davis, back in New Haven on the heels of his latest release, the single “Heal The World.”
“You’re in the best seat in the house,” Williams said.
“Best seat in the city,” Anderson said.
Anderson and Williams.
The event was a collaboration between People Get Ready bookstore and Stetson Library, which meant Stetson branch manager Diane Brown was on hand to introduce Davis. To allow a larger audience to see him, Davis and fellow musicians Ace Livingston and Dawn Tallman had performed two sets, one in the afternoon and this set in the evening.
“Chris has adopted New Haven as part of his community,” Brown said. “He’s always giving back.” In July 2020, ”>he appeared in front of Stetson Library to celebrate the release of his solo album, Focus, released in June after Davis won a second bout with cancer earlier in the year. Brown mentioned that Stetson Library is looking to reopen at the end of July or early August in its new location in the new Q House on Dixwell Avenue, currently under construction. “We’re going to continue to do what we do,” she said, which would likely include more collaborations with People Get Ready.
If the Davis show was any indication, further collaboration could only be to the good. Davis greeted his masked, socially distanced audience with a friendly “good evening! How is everybody doing today?” which was met with a raucous round of cheers.
Davis’s single, “Heal The World,” was making the rounds of radio and streaming media. “I can’t heal the world,” he said, “but I can lend the world my music. We start with this vibe right here.”
He, bassist Livingston, and singer Tallman, with the help of backing tracks to fill out the sound, then tore into their first number, a groove that showcased what each of them could do. The audience was small (by necessity, due to reopening restrictions) but filled the space with its applause.
“I’m here to break some bread,” said Davis, who has twice been nominated for a Grammy in his role as a producer. “I always love bringing it back to the community.”
In song after song, Davis showcased his deep expressiveness as a keyboard player. His face was covered by mask and sunglasses, but in his note choices and exquisite phrasing, he used his fingers to talk through his instrument. In this, he found a symbiotic musical companion in Livingston, who described Davis as “one of my musical mentors, and he has poured so much into me.” In a take on the 1996 hit “Change The World,” Davis and Livingston turned the song into a chance to make it a duet. As the backing track ended and the rhythm faded, Livingston launched into a coda that was freer with time and even more emotive than his playing had been during the song.
Davis and Livingston.
“I thought this was my show!” Davis joked. He answered with a complex and lyrical piano line. What followed was a musical conversation between Davis and Livingston that felt like a friendly game of one-upsmanship between two very clever people — a game Davis won as he executed a long, descending line on his keyboard that Livingston, laughing, made clear he couldn’t match.
Davis then called Tallman to the stage to “come shut it down for us.” Tallman then sang a take on the 1986 hit “Time After Time” with an approach that changed it from a deeply heartfelt, romantic song into something broader, even spiritual. It became a song about drawing strength from the community around you to realize your dreams, and it brought a few in the audience to their feet to applaud at the end.
Davis dedicated the next song to his sister, who had been his caregiver during his battle with cancer last year. “She became everything that a person in my situation needed,” he said. “Caregivers go through some stuff.” He was pleased to report that at his last checkup he was deemed free of cancer, but added that “we fight every day.” Regarding his own sickness, he came to understand that “you have to have a strong mind — the body reacts to that.” His sister helped him keep up that strength. So did music. “Just get me to that keyboard,” he said. “Get me to that keyboard and I’m good.”
“Don’t let them take your dreams,” he told the audience. “You’re all sitting here watching me live my dreams.”
They ended with a Davis original. “The last song is my quote: ‘it’s all love,’” he said. By the end of the set, all three musicians were at their loosest, most imaginative, and most expressive, performing a song full of hope, recorded at a point last year when hope was most in need. A year later, with the prospect of reopenings large and small across the city, Davis’s music felt like a promise kept.