Kate Davis

Kate Davis began her music career as a jazz prodigy who showcased her warm, textured voice and main instrument, the double bass, on recordings of standards as well as on stages including the Kennedy Center as a teen. She began writing her own music as a young adult, later co-penning Sharon Van Etten 's adult-alternative hit "Seventeen" (2019). Davis presented her own graceful, adventurous indie rock with 2019's Trophy, her debut as a singer/songwriter. Born in West Linn, Oregon, in 1991, Kathryn Davis began studying the violin at the age of five. By middle school, she had developed an interest in jazz, and she took up the double bass at 13. She played both violin and bass for the Portland Youth Philharmonic. By high school, Davis was giving concerts where she played bass and sang, also earning a spot in the Grammy Jazz Ensemble as bassist. Among her other accolades as a teen were an NFAA youngARTS Silver Award, multiple Downbeat Magazine Student Awards, and an invitation to participate in the Brubeck Institute Summer Jazz Colony. She self-released the jazz album Introducing Kate Davis in 2008, following it with A Kate Davis Holiday in 2009. That year, she was named a Presidential Scholar of the Arts, leading to a performance at Kennedy Center, and relocated to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music on scholarship.