WEBVTT
00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:33.000
Maurice Levy: So you were saying that music was his life? Davis: Yes. It
was. Levy: And, uh, and of course, teaching was an integral part of it. I'm
sure that, yes, it underlined his love of music. And when you say he had
these big programs, what what do you mean by that? You mean he had, uh, he
liked large choirs, right? That he liked. He liked large. Davis: Yes. He
did. Levy: Uh, and on some occasions he would he have an accompanying
orchestra. Or was it mostly? Yes, we did, but the church was mostly. Yes.
Right. He had an organist there.
00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:52.000
Velma Davis: Yes. Even in the Messiah one year there, he had the strings,
um, you know, violins and. Uh. But he never bothered with the [?]. But I
remember he had he did have the trumpet and the the violins, one year.
00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:54.000
Levy: Violin and probably a cello and.
00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:31.000
Davis: Uh.huh for the Messiah. He made a big production of it, and this he
just liked big things and the like. I was saying this, this music
extravaganza that he would have, our choir would put on a choir day and
then we would invite, he himself would have the secretary to, he'd dictate
a letter to her, inviting the various choirs. And he he did not believe in,
um, you know, this color thing. He, he just believed that there were just
people and and this is the way he got along with people. He was very well
respected.
00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:32.000
Levy: He was colorblind.
00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:33.000
Davis: Thats right.
00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:35.000
Levy: Colorblind. And because music is colorblind.
00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:57.000
Davis: That's right. And and the for the last four years that he had the
Messiah, Merle Scharf. Do you know Mr. Scharf? Levy: I know. Davis: Okay.
Well, he played the Messiah for us. In fact, he's our church organist now.
Levy: Really? Davis: Mhm. And, um. So he just he he just didn't care where
the music came from as long as he got the music.
00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:11.000
Levy: What did he have anything other. Anything? Just a. See what other
what other kinds of things besides the Messiah. Did he have anything large?
That's a large production. Of course. We're talking about an oratorio.
00:02:11.000 --> 00:03:16.000
Davis: He had he had every year, once a year, he had student recitals for
his students at uh, Senate Hall. And he used to have to have them at first
at the various churches and then, uh. Big as they grew. He had to go into
Senate Hall, and he'd start with the little ones and on up to the advanced
students. And this was something that he did once a year. He said he always
felt that the parent was proud to see their children in action. Uh, for,
you know, what they had done. Uh, taken in through the year, for the year.
So each year he would put on this student recital and the parents supported
it very well, plus the church members, they came to it. And I would always
after their student recital was over, I would start baking cakes maybe a
couple of weeks before a big reception and have a reception afterwards. Uh
huh. And the students and the parents would mingle with each other.
00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:22.000
Levy: Now at that recital, of course, he had the his piano students, the,
the vocal students participate in that?
00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:38.000
Davis: Mhm. Mhm. There would be one portion of the program that would uh,
uh be uh, that where you would hear the pianist that, well the beginners,
they were first because he said sometimes they had a tendency to get tired.
So he would always have them on first and then.
00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:43.000
Levy: The little 5 or 6 year old, they've had it after a half hour. So he
got them off before they got fidgety. Right.
00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:48.000
Davis: Uh huh. And then he would go into the, uh, other voice and.
00:03:48.000 --> 00:04:26.000
Levy: Then he finished up with the most, uh, polished. Davis: Students.
Right. Mhm. Levy: The ones that had the most development. Davis: That's
right. And. Levy: Any any other kinds of things you can think that he did?
I. Of course, he received a number of honors. He got the Pittsburgh Music
and Art Club uh award in 1971, and the Ministerial Alliance awarded uh
award through the Greater Pittsburgh AME Church in 1979 and the Cardwell
Dawson Guild Award, the Pittsburgh Chapter. Uh.
00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:46.000
Davis: These that he got after those. He got one from the Baptist
Ministerial Alliance there. The one at the very bottom there.
00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:54.000
Levy: And. Well, the awards that he has here. Of course, it gives a good
testimony to the high esteem he was held in the music community.
00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:59.000
Davis: This one came from his his choir, Bethel Choir. Yes. And this one
was from Hillhouse.
00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:20.000
Levy: Hillhouse for distinguished service for over 50 years in the
Pittsburgh community. We're reading here, uh, some of the texts from the
plaques that are in the, uh, Mrs. Davis's living room here. And, uh, he
certainly got recognition, but I imagine the best recognition would be from
his students, wouldn't you? Davis: That's right. Levy: You think that's
right? Is that right?
00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:42.000
Davis: That's right, that's right. And his his his students still, uh,
hold him in very high esteem because many of them say that, you know, they
would have never had they not, uh, come in contact with him, they would
have never went as far with music as they did. So he's had quite a few
students that he can, that he's gone, but that I can.
00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:56.000
Levy: Uh, well, that seed is still out there. That seed is still growing
that he planted. Right. That they that they love music, even if they never
became professional musicians. Davis: Right. Levy: They go to church and
they appreciate what's going on.
00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:25.000
Davis: That's right. Because most of them that were his voice students,
they do sing in, in some of the leading church choirs and things, you know.
So, uh, it's it's a. It makes me feel good when I quite often I, I run into
them maybe Downtown or someplace, you know, and they will say to me, I'll
never will forget Mr. Davis. And some of them now have children, and they
are able to teach their children because of the music that they had taken.
00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:31.000
Levy: Who knows, one of them may become won't be quite the same. Another
professor. Professor Davis.
00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:45.000
Davis: I hope so.
Levy: That that, of course, is the best. So the approval you could find is
when somebody emulates what you did. Davis: That's true. Levy: And I'm sure
that he has a number. I'm sure you've heard from some who have gone on to
musical careers.
00:06:45.000 --> 00:07:32.000
Davis: Yes. In fact, we have a little, um, a minister. He's he's a
minister now, um, and he had studied under my husband, and he grew up in
the children's choir under him at Bethel Church. And after my husband had
left the church, then he became the organist of Bethel Church before he.
Well, even after he went into the ministry. But before he got his own
church, he. Um. And sometimes he would have to direct, and I could see some
of my husband's movements in him and, and I would say to him after church,
I saw Ralph Davis this morning. He said, that's who taught me. And he would
just smile, you know. So he's now a minister and he has a church in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:36.000
Levy: I'm sure he he'll be teaching people and they will pick up some of
the same.
00:07:36.000 --> 00:08:35.000
Davis: And his little wife, she, um, she the very first lesson that she
ever had, she had a beautiful voice, but she had never had voice lessons.
And she came here from Alabama and to go to school, and she was living with
her aunt, and her aunt was a dear friend of mine from Bethel Church. So she
had a lot of vibrato in her voice. And, um. My husband said to the aunt,
Barbara Jean has a beautiful voice, but she needs to get rid of some of
that vibrato. So the aunts sent her here to him and he worked with her
voice. And of course, she went on to. She finished out here at Carlow and
then she went on into Pitt. And so she's teaching now. She married the
little minister. And so she's teaching up in Cincinnati and, and she's into
choir work and all. To she, once they take music they it seems that it just
stays with them.
00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:52.000
Levy: Well, I wish that I can say, though, that not all of them take it,
but the ones who, who were able to be successful with your husband became
musicians, as I'm sure he had students, as we indicated before, who were
very short term students.
00:08:52.000 --> 00:09:40.000
Davis: Yes, they were, but I sometimes I think the reason is, is many of
them, um, continued on as they did because this bringing them before the
public once a year that seemed to have done something for them, you know,
to give them more self-confidence and a desire to do this again next year.
You know, when the little ones, even I would notice them, when they would
play their little pieces that they had for the recital and, and the people
would applaud because he, he taught them beautiful stage deportment, you
know, how to pat a bow and when to bow, how to walk on, to walk on the
stage. Uh huh. And uh, so they even the young ones, the little ones, they
looked forward to this for the next year. And, um, so I think that it was
rewarding, as rewarding to the student as it was to him.
00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:54.000
Levy: Well, I'm sure it is. It always is when you have a good teacher.
Mhm. Because I is it fair to say that one of his major contributions he
instilled discipline. Davis: Oh yes. Levy: Discipline. Not just deportment
but musical discipline.
00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:37.000
Davis: Right. That's right, that's right. Even with us um, our when we
went to different churches to sing. He or he never allowed us to just mope
along. We. He would give us a certain beat that we had to walk to, you
know, and, uh, when you got wherever you stood on the floor or up in the
choir stand, wherever you sang from, um, you knew to keep your eye on him
every moment. Don't worry about what's out there in the audience. You watch
me, and whatever I do, I'll expect you to carry it out, you know? And he's.
He, uh, he was very strict with his music, with his choirs, as well as his
students.
00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:42.000
Levy: He knew how to train people. He had a this sounds very, very.
00:10:42.000 --> 00:11:01.000
Davis: Accounting for it. You know, he would uh, maybe, maybe someone that
maybe sitting out there in the audience and would hear, listen to him
training his choirs might think, well, he's fussy, but his, his, his, his
choir members loved him. They, they they like the strictness that he had.
00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:05.000
Levy: That's that's the famous quote, you know, discipline is a special
kind of love.
00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:08.000
Davis: Mhm. Mhm. That's true. That's true.
00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:15.000
Levy: If you want somebody to, to achieve something you must make them do
that. They should do.
00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:21.000
Davis: That's right. And at the when he passed. Um, uh, Doctor Hill did
have you.
00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:23.000
Levy: I know who he is. Yes.
00:11:23.000 --> 00:12:17.000
Davis: Well, he, uh, told he. Well, he said that my husband and Raymond
Walsh was his inspiration. That's where he was inspired to to take music.
And he tells me that he used to go down and clean up my husband's studio
for him so that he could hear the people taking their lessons. And he got a
chance to get in a few free lessons from my husband by cleaning up the
studio and all for him. And when he passed, he came to the funeral parlor
that night and asked me, well, he came. He called me and asked me if he
could bring his, um, Sounds of Heritage to the funeral parlor and render a
couple of numbers, because I know Mr. Davis would love that, he said. And I
said, of course I'd be happy to have you do this. And they did. They came
and they gathered around the casket and they sang, and it sort of lifted,
you know, it sort of took some of the grief away to, to you know.
00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:20.000
Levy: Some people in that choir were students of his.
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:29.000
Davis: They were they were uh.huh. And some of them, some of them sang in
his Young Women's Civic Choir that were in the Sounds of Heritage.
00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:34.000
Levy: Yeah. It's just a marvelous story, really. Is he? He lived a very
productive life.
00:12:34.000 --> 00:13:01.000
Davis: He did, he did. And when he, uh, when he passed it, it showed what
people thought of him. Because the church was filled that day, the day of
his funeral, that the church was filled. And, um, it, uh, when you saw his
musician friends, they rallied around me that he was gone, you know, and,
uh, that it it sort of lifted my spirits because it let me know what people
thought of him.
00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:16.000
Levy: Sure it gave you a lot of solace and comfort. Davis: It did comfort.
Levy: You were telling me that he had, uh, put the Porgy and Bess on for
one year. Now, how did, uh, what kind of a, uh, enterprise was that?
00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:29.000
Davis: Well, it was it was with all students. Uh, his student, Denise
Sheffey. She played the part of of, uh, Bess and another one of his
students, Larry Johnson. He was Porgy.
00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:31.000
Levy: Now, this was put on at.
00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:32.000
Davis: The church hall at Senate Hall.
00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:37.000
Levy: But is it basically out of the church? He took these people?
00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:54.000
Davis: Yes. Well, no. No, not necessarily out of there. All of them. Most
of them belong to a church, but not from. They didn't come from our church.
Now, uh, Denise Sheffey, you know, she came from Wesley Center, but she
took the lead of, uh, of of Bess.
00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:56.000
Levy: What year was that? About 4 or 5 years ago?
00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:03.000
Davis: That was in, um. 80, I think, or something. I don't, I don't know.
00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.000
Levy: Well, it was in the 80s.
00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:45.000
Davis: But it was in the 80s. Uh huh. And uh, so he he had said he was
only going to put it on for one year, but after it got, uh, they had the
Pittsburgh Courier reporter was their music critic was there, and she gave
it such a high rating that he found himself putting it on another year.
And, uh, but he used a different lead. And it was a well attended, very
well attended, and and the voices were even, they had some of the young
people got busy and made up, uh, different uh stage. Uh.
00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:46.000
Levy: They did the scenery.
00:14:46.000 --> 00:15:16.000
Davis: Yeah. Scenery. Uh huh. And uh, and um, um, it, uh, it it just
turned out well. And Merle Sharp, he, he played the piano for it, and, um,
they had a drummer. I can't remember what his name was, but, uh, it. Had a
full house both years that he presented it. He had this, he had the student
recital portion first, and then uh, um, went into Porgy and Bess. Uh, they
didn't do the whole thing. Excerpts from it.
00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:25.000
Levy: Excerpts. But probably the major, major, what we call an aria. Major
song.
00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:52.000
Davis: Right. Uh huh. And. It was quite successful and it had his health
not gone bad, I'm sure he would have been putting it on again. But then he
got to the place that the legs began to give out on him, and but he stuck
with that Messiah up until almost the very end, because the year after the
last year that he put on the Messiah, by the next year he was in a
wheelchair.
00:15:52.000 --> 00:16:10.000
Levy: Yes. We find that the information here is that Professor Davis
produced Porgy and Bess in 1978 and 1979, two years. I want to thank you
very much for a very informative and, uh, I think extremely.
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:11.000
Davis: Lively and and.
00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:12.000
Levy: Pleasant hour.
00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:15.000
Davis: Thank you for having come to have this interview with me.
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:29.000
Levy: It's, uh, I think it gives a little give inspiration to people who
listen to it, to know that somebody dedicated their lives to young people
and, and and for the propagation of music. Because he loved it.
00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:32.000
Davis: Yes he did. That was his life, his music.
00:16:32.000 --> 00:17:32.000
Levy: Thank you.
Davis: You're quite welcome.
