Curt's Jazz Cafe

Hi!  My name is Curtis Davenport and this is my jazz story. 

While my brother was on a long  deployment in Vietnam I looked through his record collection.   I saw Zoot Sims, Sarah Vaughan, Tito Puente, and many other artists that looked so cool to me.  Though I didn’t dare play my  older brother’s records, something about these people drew me in and made me want to know more about them.  Thankfully my brother came home from Vietnam but he moved away and took his records with him.  However,  my curiosity never waned.

In college I took a jazz history class and began to study the artists behind the record album covers.  Through Professor Ray VunKannon, I learned about the artist that I had admired all of those years.  What was a passing interest became a lifelong love!

From 1997  through 2000, I worked on WPBX  radio in Long Island, NY.  My show was called the “Saturday Night Jazz Party” where I played the best of mainstream, latin and soul jazz.  I moved to Charlotte, NC  in 2000 and began Curt’s Jazz Cafe satellite jazz radio show in 2005.  Along with this I began writing for Jazz Improv magazine in 2006.  I became a columnist in 2008.  My column entitled  “Browsing the Bins” still runs until this day.  Today, I continue to eat, sleep and write about Jazz.