Mark Davenport
Full Circle: Songs on the Carousel of Time
An intimate and thought-provoking alternative pop album, featuring piano and vocals, with shades of fusion and art rock behind lyrics of rediscovery, faith, love, dreams, imagination, and hope.
This is the debut solo release from singer/songwriter Mark Davenport. The self-produced CD is a retrospective of songs drawn from Davenport’s imaginative catalogue, penned over a 20-year period. Centered on Davenport’s vocal and keyboard work, these newly recorded songs also feature tasteful guitar tracks, recorders, cello, percussion, and appearances by several guest artists, including noted jazz saxophonist Andy Snitzer and Davenport’s son Miles Davenport (guitars).
Mark Davenport was born in New York City to musical parents. He was playing music in “the family band” before he could read and write. He spent most of his early childhood growing up in an experimental artist’s community in Rockland County, New York, living among painters, potters, dancers, avante garde film makers, performers and composers (John Cage among them). Davenport began studies on the cello at age eight, and classical and jazz piano at age 15. He attended Sarah Lawrence College on a cello scholarship before taking a leave of absence to go on tour with The Saturday Night Band in the late 70s. The group charted several dance hits and toured the U.S. for nine months, including sold out performances at the legendary Apollo Theater in New York City. Davenport spent the next dozen years moving between membership in locally popular bands in the New York area, as a musical director for an Off-Broadway theater company, as a composer for documentary television, and as a specialist on renaissance and baroque woodwind instruments.
In 1992 Davenport took a hiatus from songwriting to pursue a Ph.D. in Musicology at the University of Colorado, at Boulder. He is currently an Associate Professor of Music at Regis University in Denver, where he heads the Music Department.
A note from the performer:
“Creating this album was a very personal journey. After a 16-year absence I returned to the recording studio. I was somehow drawn to songs I had written years earlier and I gradually allowed myself to reconnect with them, and my past, rediscovering and reworking them in a new light—and also writing some new ones. On a personal level, I wanted to create a concept album that expressed certain emotional themes and subjects: dreams, imagination, hope, fate, time… On a purely musical level, I sought to construct a song cycle that fused popular styles with classical forms and compositional techniques. I’m glad I can share this with you.”
A note about purchasing this album on CD Baby:
The CD includes a 20-page full color booklet with all of the lyrics, photos (by George Ancona, Betsy Williams, and Tom Sundro Lewis), album credits, special thanks, and extensive liner notes, which really help to understand the concept of the album and the stories behind each song. The CD booklet is only included with the purchase of the CD (not the downloads).
••• 10% of the profits for the sale of this CD will be contributed to "Healthlinks Foundation," a wonderful organization whose mission is to support healthy, active, survivorship for cancer survivors and their families. A link to their website can be found on this album page (lower left).
Jazz: Jazz-Pop