Join us for a historic evening of music. After nearly 20 years of musical collaboration, Debbie Davis and Josh Paxton will record their first duo record live in front of an audience, a format designed to capture the spontaneity, intimacy and dynamic range of their live performances.
Comfortable in many contexts from living rooms to dive bars to concert halls, this musical pair moves through musical genres with the same ease.
The set will include standards by Fats Waller and Irving Berlin, the pop magic of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney as well as obscure gems from Randy Newman and more.
This recording seeks to capture their musical breadth along with the clear respect, humor and affection they share for the music, their audience and each other.
Because this is a recorded event and seating is extremely limited, we request that you arrive in a timely fashion so that we can be ready to begin promptly at 7pm.
Debbie Davis
The daughter of two opera singers, Debbie Davis never had a chance. She was born a singer. She made her professional singing debut at the age of two and by her 5th birthday she was traveling with her parents, performing childrens' roles in opera companies all over America. A native of New Jersey, Debbie moved to New Orleans in 1997 and began making a name for herself in the local music community.
Debbie has recorded and/or performed with Irma Thomas, Michael Cerveris, John Boutte, Soul Asylum, The Misfits, Dukes of Dixieland, Leigh "Lil Queenie" Harris, Paul Sanchez (Cowboy Mouth), Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap), Tony Clifton and Alex McMurray. In 1999
she joined the world renowned vocal group,The Pfister Sisters, and has spent the last 17 years performing locally and internationally with the group. Debbie was the jingle singer for the 2003-2009 Zatarains ad campaign and contributed to the Grammy and Emmy
Award winning sound track to HBOs TREME. She also made regular appearances as herself on TREME during its four season run.
Josh Paxton
At the age of five Joshua Paxton received a little yellow toy piano that he banged on for years, playing along with TV jingles and music on the radio by ear. At 11 his parents gave into his pleas for piano lessons and bought him his first piano. Josh moved from his native Ohio to New Orleans to study piano with Ellis Marsalis in the mid- 90s. By the time he earned his masters degree in Jazz Piano, he found that the city had gotten its teeth into him, so he stayed. Since then he has served at the pleasure of notable acts as Maria Muldaur, Leigh “Li’l Queenie Harris, Cookie Gabriel, Bruce Hornsby, the Afghan Whigs, Papa Mali, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, The Wild Tchopitoulas, Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes and the Pfister Sisters. His transcriptions of the music of James Booker (The James Booker Collection, Hal Leonard) and Professor Longhair have become standard reference tools for pianists the world over.