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Billie Davies - A Nu Experience - A New Direction In New Orleans

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After 20 years of playing, producing and releasing instrumental jazz, Billie Davies is turning a page and is bringing us a Nu Vocal and Electric Experience, 'On Hollywood Boulevard.'
After 20 years of playing, producing and releasing instrumental jazz, Billie Davies is turning a page and is bringing us a Nu Vocal and Electric Experience, On Hollywood Boulevard.

Billie Davies' 2012 release of All About Love solidified her position as a professional jazz musician. This recording of standards and original music, charted #1 in CMJ Jazz College Radio Charts for ‘top jazz add’ in new albums and went on to stay in the top 20 for 4 weeks. “all about Love” was also very well received in Canada where the album ended up in the Top 10 on three different !Earshot Jazz charts.

In October, 2013 Billie released 12 VOLT which also garnered national and international attention. CJ Bond, JAZZ MUSIC, wrote the following, 12 VOLT features exclusively original compositions of Billie Davies, revealing yet another formidable creative talent in Davies' impressive artistic arsenal and adds the crucial tyne of 'composer/arranger' to her sterling artistic fork, augmenting fearless innovation, and superlative drumming technique as well. Jan Hocek of His Voice in Prague wrote:”Without hesitation—high voltage avant-garde jazz—one of the most remarkable trio albums of the year! In 2013 Billie Davies received the “Jazz Artist of the Year" Award by the 23rd Annual Los Angeles Music Awards. That year in L.A. noticed the beginnings of inclinations towards a style that can be best explained today as Nu jazz. In March of 2014 she moved to New Orleans where she has graced stages ever since and recorded her latest published album Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon which was released in New Orleans in October of 2015. She received more national and international attention due to a player feature, “Billie Davies '20 Years Stronger', published in Downbeat Magazine May 2016 edition. Many Articles and reviews have been written on her music from Prague to Belgium to London to New York to San Jose.

“Drummer/composer Billie Davies’ latest stop in her musical journey is a fruitful pairing of what she brought into New Orleans with what New Orleans brought to her."—S Victor Aaron, Something Else!

A new direction in New Orleans!

Since recording, releasing and performing Hand In Hand In The Hand Of The Moon as an ode to the work of her dearest friend, Belgian artist Serge Vandercam (1924-2005), and performing with Billie & The Bad Boyzzzz and the Billie Davies Trio in 2015- 2016 it slowly became time for her new album project On Hollywood Boulevard, for which Billie wrote the melodies and lyrics, to become a reality.

“On Hollywood Boulevard” came about while she still lived at 6533 Hollywood Blvd. at The Historic Hillview Hollywood in Hollywood, Los Angeles. She lived there for several years and her many experiences in and impressions of Hollywood Boulevard needed recording. It took from 2012 in Hollywood, the initial conception, to September of 2016 in New Orleans to result in a recorded album of 5 songs that Billie Davies wrote melodies and lyrics for, 1 instrumental improvisation and 1 improvisation with improvised lyrics by IRIS P. Billie and her husband/producer Mike Davies chose Evan Oberla, with whom she has recorded and performed since February of 2015, on keys/synth and trombone and Oliver Watkinson, who became her bassist in the summer of 2015, on electric bass. Billie Davies met Iris P through an introduction by Evan Oberla, during one of their performances at The Dragon’s Den, and was rejoiced to find the perfect vocalist, the perfect chemistry, to record and perform the On Hollywood Boulevard lyrics and experience.

The On Hollywood Boulevard, A Nu Experience line-up

IRIS P: vocals.

Born in 1985, a New Orleans native, Catherine Poree' aka IRIS P, an acronym which stands for “I reached. I survived. Poree' is my last name," discovered her talent when she received her very first instrument, a violin, at the age of 6. From there she went on to perform in orchestra concerts and a host of plays, but most of all enjoyed singing with her siblings @ Jesus Unity Church in New Orleans organized by her mother, the late Marilyn J. Etienne, also known as LADY GOSPEL, who was an extremely well known singer locally and nationally.

In 2010 IRIS P started her mission to “save the world" by performing her original songs written from her extravagant poetry debuting a plethora of songs from her Underground EP “I Got Issues". Along the ride she has worked with a host of different local producers from the likes of Blaq-n-Mild, Jason Neville, and Scifor aka Calvin da Man, Niyo of Flight-school, Blaze, to Mike Taylor of EGMG / Greenteam. IRIS has recently been performing all over New Orleans including at historical landmarks such Blue Nile, Peaches Records, Dragon's Den, Berthas on Basin St, Perfect Fit, Basin Street Lounge, House of Blues ,Social House, Red Velvet, Le'Roux and Club Caribbean. She shows style like no-other with Jazz Melodies when she played “Billie Holiday" in “Dryades Street Divas Review" in the summer of 2014, held at Ashe's Cultural Center. She won “Nola’s Hottest Female Vocalist In October of 2014" at the Nola Hip Hop Awards, and just last year IRIS P. headlined in the Foundation Room at the New Orleans House of Blues.

Evan Oberla: keyboard/synthesizer and trombone.

Evan was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, playing piano and guitar at an early age. In 5th grade he picked up the trombone for the school band. In high school his musicality led him to participate in multiple jazz ensembles, including the acclaimed Columbus Youth Jazz Orchestra. Evan graduated in June 2009 from Ohio State University with a degree in Jazz Studies performance. Evan is a diverse and active musician based in New Orleans, LA. Besides playing all over the city in many different groups, he is the trombonist for Allen Stone, O.A.R., and most recently, Elle King. He also leads his own band from Columbus, called EOP, with one EP out, 'Here', a recording project in New Orleans called The Most Infamous, and a new instrumental group named The Warheadz.

A few of the artists he has been blessed to share the stage with include Wyclef Jean, Eric Krasno, Phillip Phillips, Spoon, Rashawn Ross, Jeff Coffin, Andrew McMahon, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, DJ Logic, Mary Wilson, Kelley James, Columbus Jazz Orchestra, The Beethoven Found Philharmonic Orchestra, Soja, Cris Cab, Mike Dillon, and Walk the Moon, Mike Dillon among others. He has opened for national acts including Dave Matthews Band, Trombone Shorty, and the Dynamites feat. Charles Walker.

Oliver Watkinson: bass.

Born in Brunswick Maine, Oliver began studying music at the age of five. He attended college in Boston at the New England Conservatory, where he had the opportunity to study upright jazz bass and perform with greats such as Lee Konitz, Dave Holland, Jason Moran, Cecil McBee, and many more. In 2014, Oliver moved to New Orleans and began performing with BILLIE DAVIES, Gandhi Castle, Laelume, and various street bands. He has taught and performed all over the United States, as well as Central America and Canada.

Billie Davies: drums.

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