After the Second World War, Davie played tenor saxophone in the Tommy Sampson Orchestra, which was based in Edinburgh and broadcast and toured in Europe.
[8]: 34 Declaring that the spiritual path is incompatible with planning ahead, he attempted to paint as automatically as possible, which was intended to bring forth elements of his unconscious.
[9] In this, he shared a vision with surrealist painters such as Miró, and he was also fascinated by the work of psychoanalyst Carl Jung.
[9] Championing the primitive, he saw the role of the artist as akin to that of the shaman,[6] and remarked upon how disparate cultures have adopted common symbols in their visual languages.
In the early 1970s his interest in free improvisation led to a close association with the percussionist Tony Oxley.
[13][14] On 29 October 1947, in Edinburgh, Davie married Janet Gaul, a potter, artist, and designer.