Festival Event · Saturday, July 25, 2026 · 3:45 PM

Steve Davis opens the 31st Annual Litchfield Jazz Festival with a sextet that runs deep with Litchfield Jazz Camp history. Joining him are Mike DiRubbo on alto saxophone, a member of that very first LJC faculty, Julian Shore on piano, who began as a camper at age 12 and now carries an international career, Steve Johns on drums, Avery Sharpe on bass, and Abena Koomson-Davis on vocals. Mike, Julian, Steve, and Avery are all long-time Litchfield Jazz Camp faculty members.

Meet the Artist: Steve Davis

Steve Davis is widely regarded as one of today’s leading voices on the trombone. After graduating from The Hartt School’s Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz in 1989, he first gained widespread recognition in 1990 as the last bandmember to join Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. His first recording dates were Blakey’s last, including One For All (A&M), whose title track Davis himself penned.

Over the years since, Davis has worked with a broad range of jazz luminaries, including Jackie McLean, Chick Corea, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, James Moody, Cecil Payne, Harold Mabern, Larry Willis, Freddie Hubbard, Slide Hampton’s World of Trombones, Horace Silver, Cedar Walton, Hank Jones, Roy Hargrove, and Willie Jones III. He has performed at major venues and festivals around the world, including the North Sea, Montreal, Montreux, Newport, JVC, Detroit, Chicago, Playboy, and Litchfield Jazz Festivals, The Jimmy Fallon Show with Stevie Wonder, and the White House Tribute to Ray Charles on PBS.

Davis appears on over 150 recordings, including more than 20 as a leader. His latest release, We See (Smoke Sessions, 2024), is a live recording featuring Eddie Henderson, Ralph Moore, Renee Rosnes, Essiet Essiet, and Lewis Nash.

The Steve Davis Sextet

Six musicians, all with deep roots in the Litchfield Jazz family, take the Mainstage together:

Steve Davis & Litchfield

Steve Davis holds a singular place in Litchfield Jazz Camp history: he was the Camp’s very first Music Director in 1997. A long-time educator, he spent more than 30 years guiding emerging musicians at the Hartt School’s Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Division at the University of Hartford, where he was honored for that service. In Fall 2022, he joined Berklee College of Music as a Full Professor. He has also taught at the San Francisco Conservatory, Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops, Skidmore Jazz Workshop, Jazz in July at UMass Amherst, and the Stanford University Jazz Workshop.

His return to the Litchfield Mainstage for the Festival’s 31st edition, surrounded by bandmates who share that same Camp history, is a fitting way to open the weekend.