Slice: Doubly gifted artist

The pianist digs his fingers into the keyboard and sends forth a sparkling stream of quicksilver notes.

Smooth jazz musician Neal Davis is at the Joslyn Art Museum's Jazz on the Green, trading hot licks with guitarist Ron Cooley.

Davis squeezes rippling riffs out of his Yamaha electric keyboard, and Cooley responds with fleet-fingered fretwork.

The audience, a few thousand picnickers on blankets and lawn chairs amid the museum's outdoor statues and reflecting pool, sway and dance to this bright, cheerful music.

As Davis brings his original tune “Valencia” to a resounding close, the audience erupts in wild applause.

He's a master, an artist who knows how to turn up the heat in smooth jazz without robbing this music of its soothing, even anesthetizing, qualities.

But then few pianists understand jazz and anesthesia as well as Davis.

A few days after his Joslyn appearance, Davis is at Nebraska Orthopaedic Hospital, his fingers once again flying over a keyboard. This one is attached to a series of screens monitoring the vital signs of a patient in Operating Room 3.

The patient, lying supine on the operating table and fully anesthetized, is about to have surgery on his left rotator cuff.

Davis, anesthesiologist for the procedure, is at the computer, rapidly recording everything that's been administered to the patient before surgery.

A dose of ropivacaine, a regional anesthetic, was given through a 22-gauge needle in pre-op to numb the shoulder. Once the patient reached the operating room, he received an intravenous injection of the general anesthetic propofol. Davis eyes the screen for a moment and then shakes his head.

“Propofol is the Michael Jackson special,” said Davis of the drug that the pop icon purportedly used as a sleep aid. Jackson died of cardiac arrest in June.

“Propofol is a perfectly safe and beneficial drug when given properly in a hospital operating room. Or it can be lethal.”

Davis knows what he's talking about.

He has devoted the past two decades to the fine art of anesthesia.

There was never much doubt about his becoming a physician.

Born in 1952 in Rochester, Minn., Davis grew up in a medical family. His father, Neal Sr., was at the Mayo Clinic. His grandfather had been a doctor. His uncle was, too.

His mother, however, was a pianist. So when Davis moved to Omaha as a boy, his mom made sure he got piano lessons.

Davis developed his piano chops playing duets with his mom. She had a penchant for sentimental old songs such as “Just as the Ship Went Down” and “Break the News to Mother.”

He also studied for a while with Joseph Levine, former music director of the Omaha Symphony. The early classical training still shows itself in Davis' polished piano technique.

But Davis' musical direction changed forever in 1964, when the Beatles appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

As a student at Westside High School, Davis began forming combos and early-era jam bands in the mold of the Allman Brothers.

Around this time, Davis was looking for a drummer, and a kid named Denny Hanley gave him a call. Although Hanley admitted he was just 13, Davis decided he would meet him and let him in the band – provided the kid wasn't too short.

Hanley had lied about his age. He was 11. But to this day, Hanley plays percussion with the Neal Davis Band.

After high school, Davis briefly considered studying jazz piano at Boston's Berklee College of Music, but the pull of his family's medical tradition was too strong. He went to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

There was one other medical tradition in Davis' family — his father, grandfather and uncle all had been urologists.

“That wasn't for me,” Davis says.

Late in his medical school studies, Davis discovered his dual passions for pharmacology and physiology. An anesthesiologist was born.

Most days, Davis arrives at the hospital at 6 a.m. and immediately begins preparing patients for 7 a.m. surgery. Much of his day is spent administering nerve blocks.

Wearing his royal blue doctor's scrubs, Davis pulls back a cubicle screen and warmly greets a patient.

The man on the gurney is about to have his left knee replaced, and Davis will make sure he feels no pain.

But first, the doctor must follow some protocols.

“Could you please tell me your name, date of birth and the operation you're here for?” Davis asks.

The man responds and then cracks a joke to ease his presurgery jitters.

“Guess I'll never be a dancer, huh, doc?”

Davis isn't so sure.

Satisfied that he has the right patient for the right operation, Davis commences blocking the man's left femoral and sciatic nerves.

Jill Larsen, an anesthesiology resident working under Davis' supervision, pulls out a nerve stimulator, and the procedure begins.

The device is essentially a long white needle attached to box that's charged with a nine-volt battery. Larsen inserts the needle deep into the man's leg. Davis, meanwhile, watches for the telltale muscle twitching, indicating the needle's electrical charge has found the femoral nerve. Davis sees the twitch and blocks the nerve with a dose of ropivacaine, a local anesthetic.

“You may begin to feel a little lightheaded or drowsy,” Davis warns.

The sciatic nerve, which begins in the lower back and runs through the buttock and down the leg, proves harder to find. So Davis and Larsen roll the man on his side and insert the needle through his left buttock.

As if on cue, the patient's left foot gives a powerful jerk, and Davis administers the ropivacaine.

“How long you been doing this?” the patient asks after the procedure.

“Oh, about five hours,” Davis says.

“I meant how many years?” the patient says, this time with the hint of a nervous chuckle.

During his 20-plus year anesthesiology career — working first at Clarkson Hospital and for the past five years at Nebraska Orthopaedic — Davis has seen an almost complete change in technology.

The digital nerve stimulator now in use is beginning to seem out-of-date. Davis demonstrates the latest ultrasound technology.

He smears lubricant on his neck and places the ultrasound's receiver over his subclavian artery. The bright red artery appears on the screen. Around it is a thick, fibrous knot of nerves.

“Now we can actually see the nerves we're working on,” said Davis, who recently attended a conference on the machine.

Fit, trim and sporting a stylish mustache, Davis looks about a decade younger than his 57 years.

He's known around the hospital for his easygoing disposition. It's not uncommon, friends and colleagues say, to find him greeting strangers with a broad smile and a pat on the back, as if he'd known them for years.

“Of course everybody loves Dr. Davis,” says Lori Nelson, a nurse technician at Nebraska Orthopaedic. “Everybody asks for him. Everybody wants him to be their doctor.”

Davis' days are filled with patients, but his evenings and weekends are free. He's married with three grown children — one of whom is an anesthesiology resident at UNMC — and a daughter at Westside High School. He spends his free time making music.

He's become a regular at the Ozone Lounge, performing with Hanley and other members of his band — guitarist Jon Novak, bassist Sandy Steckman and drummer Mike DeLuca. He also gives the occasional solo piano concert at Lauritzen Gardens.

Davis describes his music as “piano-centric.” His songs seem to reflect his personality. His music is buoyant, appealing and completely lacking in dark emotional clutter. In short, it's melody with a good bedside manner, a friendly sonic pat on the back.

The doctor has released eight albums on his own label, Creative Energy Productions. His CDs include recordings of New Age piano music — complete with ambient nature sounds — and a jazzy Christmas album.

He recorded and produced most of his CDs in Omaha. By far his best album, 1997's “Rendezvous,” was recorded and mixed in California. Arno Lucas — who had worked with Luther Vandross, Al Jarreau, George Duke and Bonnie Raitt — produced the album.

The album features two original Latin-inflected numbers —“Valencia” and “New Samba” — along with a classy cover of the Eric Clapton and Babyface hit “Change the World.”

Davis turned to his “Rendezvous” songs for his Aug. 13 appearance at Jazz on the Green. After trading riffs with Cooley in “Valencia,” Davis launched into a heartfelt rendition of “New Samba.” The song's breezy melodies and elegant rhythms inspired many in the audience to dance on Joslyn's east lawn. The ovation that greeted Davis at the end of his set was warm, sustained and genuinely enthusiastic.

It's late afternoon at Nebraska Orthopaedic, and Davis ends a busy day with a visit to post-op.

Four patients are in this wing, most still asleep.

Davis sets his sights on an older woman who is just coming around. Her stare is glassy, and it's clear she's not quite fully aware of her surroundings.

Davis approaches her bed and gives her a big smile.

“How are you feeling; are you OK?” he asks.

The woman is silent for a moment but finally responds.

“Thank you, thank you,” she manages to whisper.

Davis beams at her words, looking as if he's just received a rousing ovation.

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com