Businessman bandleader musician
Meyer Davis was born on January 10, 1885, in Ellicott City, Maryland, one of four children of Sol Davis and Rose Benjamin.
When Meyer was eight, his father, who had been in the shoe business, moved the family to Washington, District of Columbia, where he opened a coal and feed store.
Davis started taking violin lessons and played in a family quartet. When he was rejected by the school orchestra at the age of thirteen, he organized a five-piece band to play high school dances. The band played for $25 an evening; the budding businessman paid $12 to the other players and kept the rest for himself. He also took a part-time job as second violinist in a theater.
After completing a two-year high-school course in bookkeeping and stenography at Business High School in 1910, Davis entered George Washington University as a law student. He also worked briefly part-time as secretary to a clergyman and then became a court reporter on the Washington Post. Throughout this period he continued to lead his band and, while still a law student, began building his musical empire by starting a second group. At a time when the Marine Corps Band played little but Sousa marches and Strauss waltzes at social events in Washington and new dance rhythms were beginning to be heard, Davis headed out West during a law school vacation to explore syncopation.
Davis returned to Washington with a mastery of the dance music of the turkey trot, the bunny hug, and the grizzly bear, and within a year he had challenged the dominance of the Marine Corps musicians. Davis introduced his music to Washington society in 1913 and enjoyed a near monopoly as high society's undisputed favorite for a quarter of a century. In the summer of 1913, Davis and his pianist brother Uriel traveled to Bar Harbor, Maine. He persuaded the manager of the Malvern Hotel to hire his group to alternate with the Marine Band. As a result of his success, the summer resorts' wealthy residents, previously served only by vacationing members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, invited him to play at their Philadelphia and New York homes during the winter.
The following year, Davis received his first steady engagement, providing music at lunch and dinner at Washington's New Willard Hotel. The discovery that he could take in $90 per week after salaries and expenses made him leave law school to become a full-time bandleader.
By his early twenties, the musical entrepreneur had offices in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. Davis hired Hilda Emery as a pianist for his Bar Harbor orchestra, and she often composed songs for special occasions.
In 1939, Davis wrote the words and music for Ev'ry Thought, Ev'ry Breath, Ev'ry Dream with Kenneth Case and Byron Bradley. Davis described himself as a businessman with an astute appreciation of music rather than a musician. He became a corporation that could have as many as thirty bands playing somewhere on any given evening, commanding a payroll in excess of $3 million a year. During one season in Newport, Rhode Island, he played at fifty-nine of sixty top-flight parties. His resourceful press agent was Harry Sobol. Each band consisted of hand-picked musicians, playing a repertoire of some five hundred arrangements approved by Davis and under a Davis-trained conductor.
The "millionaire maestro" himself appeared at only the most important and lucrative engagements. In 1965, for example, of the 1, 421 private engagements his bands filled, he appeared at 127. Davis sometimes made as many as five personal appearances in a single night, whisking from one party to another by chartered plane or private limousine. The dignified Davis turned into a gyrating evangelist of the dance, losing more than five pounds and going through an average of three dress shirts in an evening. To keep up his energy he catnapped and took an occasional sniff on a tube of inhalant. It was not unusual for him to lead one orchestra for a Long Island wedding until 9 P. M. , take a taxi to the airport, and, changing his soaked clothes on the way, ride a shuttle plane to Washington, where he would conduct another of his bands at a coming-out party until 4 A. M. Society parties were popular during the 1920's and 1930's, dropped off during World War II, picked up again in the 1950's, and increased some 25 percent in the 1960's.
Meyer Davis orchestras played annually at such social events as the Maryland Hunt Ball in Baltimore, the April in Paris Ball and the Junior Assembly in New York, the December Ball in Chicago, and the Hospital Ball in Palm Beach. He played for royalty, including King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England and Princess Grace of Monaco. He was chosen to take his band to France in 1958 to play at the international Versailles debutante ball in the Royal Palace and took his musicians to Rio de Janeiro for an American debutante ball in the Brazilian capital.
His first White House engagement, at the age of eighteen, was for President Woodrow Wilson. Davis played at seven inaugural balls - for Calvin Coolidge, twice for Franklin D. Roosevelt, for Harry S. Truman, at both of Dwight D. Eisenhower's inaugurals, and for John F. Kennedy - and led orchestras at the White House many times. He had played for Jacqueline Bouvier's debut and her wedding to John F. Kennedy, as well as at the wedding of Jacqueline's mother and the debut of her sister, Lee. The list of elite families for whom Davis played includes the Fords, Firestones, Astors, du Ponts, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Dukes, and Drexels. His engagements were often booked two or three years in advance or more. Debuts, which represented around one-third of Davis's business and cost about $300, 000 each, or $200 per young lady in a mass cotillion, often were booked ten to fifteen years in advance. Proud of the continuity of his appeal from one generation to another, he noted his bookings with reference to the debuts of mothers, aunts, and sometimes grandmothers at which he also played.
In addition to performing for private patrons, Davis's musicians provided music at luxury hotels and aboard the liners United States and America. He kept location orchestras at resorts, such as the Greenbrier at White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia, and at exclusive clubs in such places as the Bahamas. They also played in the pits of many Broadway shows.
Davis began to finance Broadway shows during World War II, beginning with By Jupiter! in 1942, and became one of Broadway's leading angels, investing his money in as many as fifteen shows playing at the same time. Among the more than two hundred shows that Davis backed were such successes as The Music Man, J. B. , and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. He also invested in bowling alleys, restaurants, dance halls, an amusement park, and a film production company, not all of which were successful.
Davis described his "sound, " better known as "the society beat, " as a "distinctive, well-integrated musical throb. " His aim was to provide atmosphere through "continuous music, " a type of "orchestrated pulse that works on people in a subliminal way, urging them into dancing and easy conversation. " Davis's style of playing always sounded the same, which suited the ritual-bound social set from San Francisco to Newport. About half of his music was old standards, particularly Viennese waltzes, and often 75 percent of the music played was requests. His music seldom appeared on records or radio.
Several notables who began their careers with Davis bands were Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, and Jan Peerce. Davis worked out a system whereby one section of the orchestra played while the other rested, so that there were few interruptions between numbers, because hostesses were afraid of losing guests during breaks. Musicians were permitted one drink an hour.
Davis was active as late as December 1975, when he led the orchestra at Philadelphia's Assembly Ball for the fifty-second consecutive year. Meyer Davis died on April 5, 1976, at his home at 101 Central Park West in New York City.
Meyer Davis was a director of the Composers Laboratory Orchestra and belonged to the Congressional Club in Washington and the Lotos, Friars, and Lambs clubs in New York City.
Tall, slender and bald, Meyer Davis was known for his urbanity, courtesy, tact, and affability.
Meyer Davis was an inveterate poker player, and he relaxed by performing chamber music on the violin with his brother-in-law Pierre Monteux on the viola.
The Davises had an extensive collection of Byroniana, including Byron's last will and testament, his writing desk, and signed first editions of his works. Meyer Davis also framed and displayed copies of some of his larger checks in his office.
On June 17, 1917, Meyer Davis married Hilda Emery, by whom he had five children.
