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Nathan Davis was a prominent US jazz tenor and soprano saxophone player, born on February 15, 1937, in Kansas City, Kansas. He served as the head of the Jazz Studies Department at the University of Pittsburgh and was the founder and director of the university's annual Jazz Seminar. A multi-instrumentalist, Davis played all the reed instruments and had recently taken up the flügelhorn. He was also a prolific composer and arranger, and authored 'Writings In Jazz,' an analysis of the history and development of the music. Davis began playing the saxophone in high school after initially starting on the trombone. Following his service in the US Army in 1962, he chose to remain in Europe, living on the Left Bank in Paris from 1963 to 1969. He returned to the United States in 1969 to join the University of Pittsburgh as a Professor of Music and Director of Jazz Studies. He held a PhD in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, Connecticut, and founded the first incarnation of the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra in the mid-1980s. Nathan Davis passed away on April 8, 2018, in Palm Beach, Florida.

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