Stanton Davis, a New Orleans-born jazz, soul, R&B and Latin trumpeter/flugelhornist was the honored guest of the bi-weekly Harlem Speaks series of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem on Thursday, May 31st.

He explained how even before graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1973 with a degree in Composition and Performance, that he had been steeped in the fluid sounds of jazz, blues, soul and R&B from his early life in the Crescent City. "There was always music in the streets. And of course, there was the second line. I went to school with the Nevilles, and like everyone else in New Orleans, loved the Dixie Cups."

Davis fondly recalled his early study with the recently deceased clarinetist Alvin Batiste, who taught him how to count based on the internal feel and pulse of an African rhythm as developed in New Orleans. He also reminisced about his upbringing with his devoutly Christian grandmother, who told him, "A gentleman must always learn the basics, Stanton."

Those basics were music, dance and voice.

He listened to music a lot on the radio back in those days, tuning into to stations that played Haitian music, Irish music, blues and jazz, and even Cuban music, via Radio Havana.

But he hadn't decided to make music his life and career at this point, although he played music in the Air Force band. He spent four years in the Air Force (two years of which was spent in South East Asia) with a focus on Communications, one of his many interests. His mother Doretha was a biology teacher, and discussions of math, science and physics were a matter of course in his family.

In his early 20s he decided to pursue music whole hog, going to Boston to study at Berklee, but ending up at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he and fellow classmates such as drummer Harvey Mason studied under Gunther Schuller and George Russell. Davis considers Russell one of his main mentors, especially with respect to composing and playing music. Regarding Russell's famed Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, Davis said: "It is music and mathematics with a philosophical base. He had me read G.I. Gurdjieff and Peter D. Ouspensky, but the key lesson I learned is that his concept is to be lived."

He toured with Russell in the '70s to places like Norway, where he was impressed with the "Afrocentric" impulse in Norweigian culture. He met many musicians there, including saxophonist Jan Garberek, with whom he had wide-ranging discussions. It was around this time that Davis began a study of the esoteric side of Islam-Sufism, and its approach to the mysticism of sound.

Considering the above, it's no surprise that in the '70s he led a Boston-based, highly praised electric jazz/funk fusion group, Ghetto Mysticism, which recorded the album Brighter Days and toured throughout New England and New York.

Since then, Davis has performed, toured, and/or recorded with a plethora of jazz groups: The Mercer Ellington Orchestra, The Lionel Hampton Orchestra, George Russell's Living Time Orchestra, Mongo Santamaria's Orchestra, Mario Bauza & His Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy and bassist Charlie Haden's group. Davis also appeared as a soloist on David Sanborn's Night Music on NBC TV and has performed in concerts with jazz artists such as George Gruntz, Jim Pepper, Bob Stewart, David Murray, Richard Abrams, Sam Rivers, Gil Evans, Webster Lewis, Jaki Byard, and Max Roach.

In the early '80s Davis earned yet another milestone in his study of music, a graduate degree in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan. Throughout the '80s Davis taught a variety of courses for Jazz Mobile in Harlem, working closely with trumpeter Jimmy Owens, as well as saxophonists Charles Davis and Frank Foster. It was during these years in the Big Apple that he recognized the dominance of the saxophone as opposed to in New Orleans, where trumpet is king. He also came to equate bebop with the sound of New York, and called bebop New York jazz's ideology.

As a free-lance musician, Davis has been a key player in the orchestra pit for shows such as The Diana Ross' TV Special, and Broadway and touring shows such as Jelly's Last Jam, Black and Blue, Ain't Misbehavin', Sophisticated Ladies, Play On, Dinah Was and Bring In 'da Noise, Bring In 'da Funk as well as The Apollo Theatre's Harlem Song in New York.

His work with dancers and such dance groups as Alvin Ailey and others taught him how to play with movement; his experience with the music of Duke Ellington in Sophisticated Ladies gave him insight into the power and tenacity of Duke's ever classic, modern work plus how to correctly use a No. 9 plunger in the flare of his trumpet.

Davis's soulful trumpet voice has also graced the soundtracks for television documentaries such as PBS' An American Dream and The Virgin Island Adventure. He also appeared in George Russell's Living Time on TV in Stockholm and on MZIZI ROOTS, on WBZ-TV in Boston.

Further, Davis has been heard in concerts and festivals with such R&B and pop artists as Jon Lucien, Al Cooper, The Four Tops, Lou Rawls, David Ruffin, The Dells, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Tavares. Davis also performed in The Festival of Joy Tour for DIW Records in Tokyo, Japan and at the Berlin Jazz Festival with George Russell.

As a composer, Davis's 1989 album, Manhattan Melody was selected as "Pick Album" by Lufthansa Airlines. Davis's composition credits also include the music for Third World on WCVB-TV in Boston, the soundtrack for a multimedia show called Where's Boston? and the soundtrack for Union Station.

Davis also received a Creative Artist Fellowship for composition from the Massachusetts Foundation for The Arts and Humanities and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for Jazz Composition. Davis is included in Who's Who in Entertainment, and currently works for the American Federation of Musicians.

In an upcoming 2007 date in Dubai, Davis will play the shadow and spirit of Louis Armstrong with his long-time friend Andre de Shields. He's played in a plethora of musical situations and styles, but the element that remains constant in Davis's playing is his propensity to find a basic, New Orleans-derived approach, no matter the setting.