Davis, Steve (actually, Stephen; aka Syeed/Saeed, Luquman Abdul)

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Davis, Steve (actually, Stephen; aka Syeed/Saeed, Luquman Abdul)

Davis, Steve (actually, Stephen; aka Syeed/Saeed, Luquman Abdul) , bassist; b. Philadelphia, Pa., 1929; d. there, Aug. 21, 1987. He was married to the singer Khadijah (making him brother-inlaw to Aisha Tyner) and they were close friends of Naima before she met Coltrane. Davis was playing professionally around Philadelphia as early as 1947 with Joe Sewell, Chas. Coker, and Calvin Todd. He was arrested for heroin possession the same weekend as Jimmy Heath in January 1955. In late April 1960 he joined Coltrane’s quartet, but left by the end of the year (or perhaps early 1961) and returned to Philadelphia, where he remained in obscurity. He spent perhaps ten years in Rochester, N.Y. during the 1970s and 1980s, often using a Fender bass with a group of younger players led by Joe Locke; sometimes Khadijah would sit in. In the mid-1980s, Locke and some others left for N.Y, and Davis seems to have returned to Philadelphia, where he died after a long struggle with emphysema.

—Lewis Porter

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Davis, Steve (actually, Stephen; aka Syeed/Saeed, Luquman Abdul)

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