QC Steinway artist to be profiled in new film

Byron BK Davis has lived a cinematic story, so it only makes sense that the jovial 64-year-old Davenport native is working to tell his lifes tale on film. Ascend Classical Films has been filming a biopic (documentary) about Daviss life, growing up in Iowa, becoming the first African-American Steinway International Artist from the state (so

Byron “BK” Davis has lived a cinematic story, so it only makes sense that the jovial 64-year-old Davenport native is working to tell his life’s tale on film.

Ascend Classical Films has been filming a biopic (documentary) about Davis’s life, growing up in Iowa, becoming the first African-American Steinway International Artist from the state (so honored in 2012), and traveling the world with his music. It’s based on his own 2021 memoir, “Ivory Towers: A True Story.”

Davis (who now lives in Burlington, Iowa) has been composing and performing for 40 years. Born in Davenport, home of 20th-century jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke, Davis was raised in a musical household. His father, Bishop Ezekiel Davis, conscripted him as a teen to serve as musical director for the seven churches he oversaw, while his mother, Rose Davis, an accomplished vocalist, attended to his vocal and instrumental training.

The jazz pianist/singer plays more than a dozen instruments, including piano, guitar, organ and drums in idioms spanning jazz, R&B, gospel, soul, and pop.

He has written theme music and jingles for the Boy Scouts of America and an Indianapolis 500 race, and has directed choirs throughout the Midwest and West Coast. Davis has played or toured with artists including B.B. King, Billy Preston, Gerald Albright, Michael “Patches” Stewart and the late soul legend, Johnnie Taylor. He co-wrote original music with rock and roll legend Little Richard, as well as McFadden and Whitehead.

“I am a direct musical descendant of Johnnie Taylor and here in Iowa, there’s a direct line that goes from Sam Cooke to Johnnie Taylor to me,” Davis said recently. Those men got their start in gospel, like Davis did.

They started filming the new biopic in early 2022, including Davenport’s Mt. Olive Church of Christ, the bandshell at LeClaire Park, the former West Music in Moline, and in Florida. Davis will perform some of his music in Boston this fall, also to be recorded.

The film “Ivory Towers” is expected to be completed late this year or early 2024. “I kind of see it as a therapeutic experience,” Davis said. “You take inventory, you go back and reflect and ponder. Then, there’s being grateful. That’s my favorite word, gratitude. It’s just a blessing to have one more day.”

“I’m so grateful, because life has twists and turns, mountains and valleys,” he said. Music has been a constant in his life, a healing medicine.

“We’ll have a segment on mental health,” Davis said of the film. “I’ll talk about some of my challenges and things I’ve had to cope with, the vicissitudes of a music career.”

An inspiring story

The documentary is being directed by Gene Sticco, from the Boston area. His wife, Natalja, is an opera mezzo-soprano (a resident artist at Mystic Side Opera, in Malden, Mass.) who performed with Davis in Davenport in fall 2021. Gene is general director and CEO of the opera company.

Davis’s song, “Let Me Comfort You,” was a duet with Sticco that she performed at the Redstone Room with him in October 2021, as part of a Polyrhythms Third Sunday Jazz Series. “Let Me Comfort You” has verses in English and Russian.

They first connected through a mutual friend, guitarist Greg Smith, and Sticco (who is Latvian-born) did the duet first with Davis at an April 2021 Joy Avenue Media “JAM Session” in Bettendorf, streamed online.

“It’s been great,” Gene Sticco said of the filming process so far, noting he’s interviewed BK’s family and friends, as well as the main subject.

“This is really a story about family; it’s a story about faith, and it’s a story about those times and challenges where you have to reinvent yourself a little bit where you have to push a little bit harder,” Gene said. “It’s not in a selfish way, in the sense of somebody looking to become a star.

“It’s this inherent talent, this God-given gift that drives you to do it and where it takes you,” he said. “I think it’s such an inspiring story and really a good look for people to even recalibrate themselves a little bit and say, OK, you know, I’m ambitious and I have aspirations and this and that, but really what’s important and – is it the Grammys and worldwide recognition, or is it just the ability to pursue that passion and pursue the things that I love?”

Sticco has been covering costs for the project himself and he’s working on outside financing. He’s interviewed Davis’s mother and brothers in Florida. He anticipates the finished film to be 45-60 minutes in length.

“It’ll be done when it’s done,” Sticco said, unwilling to put a firm timetable on it. “Like everything in life, you know, money holds it up.”

Upcoming QC concert in August

Davis last gave a QC concert Dec. 17, 2022 at West Music Quad Cities, 3849 N. Brady St., Davenport.

“Ivory Towers: A True Story,” an autobiography written by Davis, was published by Byday Publishing and Heritage Publishing.

“A blessed pillar in the chaos surrounding my life was erected by the tough love my father granted me,” he wrote in the book. “There were times I was so mad, hot tears still in my eyes, I wanted to fight him. However—not wanting to die—I learned to retreat strategically. That was my father’s gift. I called it going to my Ivory Towers.

“Whenever the lights got too bright or reality a little too malleable, it was my respite. Still, there were many times I lay dying at the gates of my Ivory Towers, too stubborn to open them,” Davis wrote.

“It’s a labor of love – even love is expensive these days,” he said of the film project, to be completed in the next nine months.

Davis speaks five languages and has toured extensively in Central America. His original music will be a soundtrack for the film. Davis is also recording an audiobook of “Ivory Towers,” with music in the audiobook.

He recently confirmed an exciting new project, to write and record a new album in Clearwater, Fla., to be produced by Bernie Kirsh — who’s produced all of jazz pianist Chick Corea’s albums, Davis said. Corea’s keyboardist Kirby Jones will play on the record, which will be recorded in September 2023.

Davis’s latest record release (February 2023) is “Invisible Secret,” which is available on all streaming platforms. Davis recorded on a New Spirio R, Steinway & Sons’ new flagship piano, featured on “Invisible Secret” and will be in the new film.

His next area concert is scheduled for Aug. 5, 2023 at Davenport’s Redstone Room (2nd and Main), sponsored by the Bix Beiderbecke Museum, which is in the lower level of the Common Chord building there. Tickets for the 7 p.m. Aug. 5 show — featuring Davis’s Iowa American Blues Band — are $15, available HERE.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sMHRqqyanJOewaqx0meaqKVfo7K4v46lppyZnGK7psPSaJirrKNirq%2BwjJyspaylp7JwvcJmqq2dmaPEosWMmqmtoaOperW7jJucZqiipLOquMSdZKKmXaOyuHnFoqOmZw%3D%3D

 Share!