His Gift to us – New Orleans keyboard prodigy pulls out all the stops

Davell Crawford is a man of many apparent contradictions. Flamboyant and effusive onstage and in studio performances, he admits to being extraordinarily shy offstage, guarding details of his private life with a strong determination that some psychologists might call “hypervigilance.”

A keyboard prodigy since early childhood and a rising star in New Orleans’ active music scene of the late 1990s, he was in many ways poised to become a superstar on the order of Trombone Shorty. Instead, he dropped out of sight almost completely. After a series of three successful CD releases on the Rounder label, he abandoned the recording studio for more than a decade.

His reputation rested on outlandishly adept and fluid piano turns complemented by his highly expressive, high-range, almost genderless vocals. That combination rendered whatever genre he played—blues, ballads, jazz standards, classic New Orleans jazz—into a kind of gospel-saturated, R&B-tinged soul music.

Now in his late 30s, Crawford has returned to the public eye with a new release on Basin Street Records called My Gift to You, a grand statement exploring the themes of love, loss and home with an extraordinarily polished musical environment that, according to the CD’s voluminous liner notes, was “conceptualized, written, arranged, produced, and performed” by the artist himself.

Comprising seven original songs and eight stunning covers, My Gift to You is arranged and orchestrated in such a way that each song leads almost seamlessly to the next.

He covers songs by Billy Joel and Allen Toussaint, James Taylor and Frankie Beverly, Steve Winwood and Roberta Flack—a dominating figure in Crawford’s life and music, linked by a relationship he refers to in conversation as his “godmother,” lists in his liner notes as “manager” and refuses to discuss.

And while there are definitely stylistic influences ranging from Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway to Allen Toussaint and New Orleans piano “saint” James Booker, the real secret to what has now become a mature artistic vision is his early immersion in church music. A natural piano player since pre-kindergarten, by seven Crawford was playing for tips outside the French Quarter’s Café du Monde. By 10, St. Peter Clavier Catholic Church in New Orleans had enlisted him as choir accompanist, and by 11 he was also serving as accompanist and youth choir director at St. Joseph Baptist Church.

On My Gift to You, this grounding provides Crawford an opportunity to delve into post-Katrina loss and dislocation, mining a thematic vein that ultimately becomes a real and metaphorical dissertation on the eternal quest for “a home in this world.” Those themes never turn maudlin, and in the end, they provide comfort through shared experience and the kind of solace only church music can provide.

In the next-to-last track, Crawford completely reworks Steve Winwood’s well-known hit “Can’t Find My Way Home,” going so far as to change “you’re the reason I’ve been waiting all these years” to “you’re the reason I’ve wasted all these years,” uncovering the real blues expression hiding beneath the original’s rock balladry. And then, without missing a beat, he launches into “Ode to Louisiana,” an original composition that, in Crawford’s hands, becomes a profound hymn of praise and gratitude.