Jason Davis: when Da Mayor plays, people listen

Music can be a magical experience. Jason Davis -- one of the tenor saxophone players featured on Shaun Martin’s Seven Summers (Ropeadope, 2015) album – understands this.

While playing his saxophone outdoors a stranger approached him and told him, he was deaf his whole life, but he heard the saxophone, the first sound he ever heard. This magical experience happened not just once, but on two separate occasions.

“Those moments made me understand how important it is to play and understand that it’s bigger than me,” Jason wrote on his website.

Jason, whose friends call him, Da Mayor, says he draws inspiration from the greats Bob Marley, Louis Armstrong, Fela Kuti and Ray Charles.

He has played with jazz great Roy Ayers, Dallas legend David “Fathead” Newman from Ray Charles band, soul blues legend Mel Waiters, and Dallas talents Roy Hargrove and Erykah Badu.

Davis’ career began innocently enough when music teacher Sylvester Wallace walked into his fourth-grade class and told the teacher he wants five of the smartest kids to join the band. Davis was one of those chosen. He picked up the clarinet and within two weeks he was playing in school programs: playing everything from Johann Sebastian Bach to Whitney Houston in school programs. He later picked up the saxophone in church.

“My inspiration comes like a church service. God gives me the music and different styles and musical elements help me to filter the sound to the audience.”

He is a bandleader at events around town and he is also a producer; his tunes are on i-Tunes under Dallas Track Factory. He is constantly writing. “All day long I record little melodies into my phone or I may write on a napkin during lunch. I have a large box full of things that I started writing and didn't complete. I use all of these things to put a song into motion. “

Jason ‘Da Mayor’ Davis has come a long way from playing in school, playing in church, to playing with the stars. His personality is as big as his music. As he likes to say, ‘Da mayor don’t bother nobody; and nobody bother Da Mayor.’