Fresh off a performance at this year’s Grammy Awards, a well-known instrumentalist is spending a couple days at Slippery Rock University.
Trombonist Michael Davis is offering performance and professional advice to jazz students, as well as directing a high school honors jazz ensemble leading up to the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association’s District Jazz Concert at 2 p.m. on Feb. 3 at Swope Music Hall. SRU has hosted the concert for high school honors musicians from Butler, Lawrence and Beaver counties for more than 20 years.
Davis has spent 35 years in the music industry, including work with Frank Sinatra and five tours with the Rolling Stones between 1994 and 2007.
In addition to playing for a Broadway musical segment at the Grammys, Davis has been working in recording sessions for upcoming movies as well as running his own music publishing company, Hip-Bone Music.
Davis doesn’t mind squeezing in a visit to western Pennsylvania, even with a schedule that includes recording sessions for the upcoming movie “The Incredibles 2” and performing for the Broadway musical “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
“It’s always a good experience coming to Slippery Rock,” said Davis, who previously stopped at SRU in 2014 as a jazz ensemble guest soloist and to talk to jazz students under the direction of Jason Kush, associate professor of music. “It’s great working with Jason, and his students are terrific, so when the invitation came again it didn’t take me long to say ‘yes.'”
