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Dave Douglas

Dave Douglas is a prolific trumpeter, composer, and educator from New York City known for the stylistic breadth of his work, the lyricism and wide-ranging curiosity of his music, and for keeping a diverse set of ensembles and projects active simultaneously.

His unique contributions to improvised music have garnered distinguished recognition, including a Doris Duke Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland award, and two Grammy Award nominations. Douglas’ career spans more than 60 unique original recordings as a leader and more than 500 published works. His current ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a band co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Gifts Trio, with guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang; Gifts Quintet, adding saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and cellist Tomeka Reid to the trio; OVERCOME, with vocalists Fay Victor and Camila Meza and instrumentalists Ryan Keberle, Jorge Roeder, and Rudy Royston; and If There Are Mountains, a sextet with pianist & co-leader Elan Mehler featuring haiku and poetry from vocalist Dominique Eade. Douglas is often engaged in special projects which include big bands, tributes, and multi-trumpet ensembles, such as Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie at Zero Gravity.

As a composer, Douglas has received commissions from a variety of organizations including the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Essen Philharmonie, The Library of Congress, Stanford University, and Monash Art Ensemble. The American chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound recently premiered his piece Facts and Fictions.

Douglas has held several posts as an educator and programmer. From 2002 to 2012, he served as artistic director of the Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at the Banff Centre in Canada. He is a co-founder and president of the Festival of New Trumpet Music, which celebrated its 17th anniversary in 2020. He is currently on the faculty at Mannes School of Music and The New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. He was the Artistic Director of the Bergamo Jazz Festival for four years ending in 2019.

In 2005 Douglas founded Greenleaf Music, an umbrella company for his recordings, sheet music, podcast, as well as the music of other artists in the modern jazz idiom. Greenleaf Music has produced over 80 releases and celebrated its fifteenth year in 2020. In addition to hosting a podcast featuring engaging interviews with more than 100 creative artists, Greenleaf Music recently joined Bandcamp for Labels and is a pioneering independent music platform with a strong subscription model featuring hours of exclusive content.

Awards

His unique contributions to improvised music have garnered distinguished recognition, including: a Doris Duke Artist Award (2016), an Aaron Copland award (2010), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005), and two Grammy Award nominations for Best Instrumental Jazz Album by an Individual or Group (The Infinite, 2002) and Best Contemporary Jazz Album (Keystone, 2005). He has received fellowships supporting his compositional work from the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, Mid Atlantic Arts, Meet the Composer, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Arts International, the Vooruit Culture Center, Stanford University and the Library of Congress. Additional Awards (Selected): Jazz Artist of the year, DownBeat Critics Poll, 2000 Composer of the Year, DownBeat Critics Poll - 2000, 2001, 2002 Trumpet Player of the Year, DownBeat Critics Poll - 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013 Composer of the Year, DownBeat Critics Poll - 2001, 2002 Trumpet Player of the Year, Jazz Journalists Association Awards - 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Rising Star-Producer, DownBeat Critics Poll, 2015 Musician of the Year, Italian Jazz Critics Society, 2001 Personality of the Festival, International Cork Jazz Festival, Guinness Jazz Festival, 2001

Dave Douglas: Transcend

Read "Transcend" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 26, 2026

Dave Douglas has spent a career dodging his own shadow, and that restlessness is precisely what keeps his catalog from ever feeling stagnant. Transcend locates its friction point between two titans who seem unlikely to share the same oxygen: the spiritual grandeur of Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts and the dense, mosaic canvases of painter Jack Whitten.The weight of the album rests on the chemistry of this specific quintet. With James Brandon Lewis on tenor, Tomeka Reid on cello, ...

Play This!

Dave Douglas: Energy Fields

by Ludovico Granvassu
May 21, 2026

Here is a gem by Dave Douglas featuring the latest all-star incarnation of his Gifts band, now expanded with cellist Tomeka Reid and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, joining original members Rafiq Bhatia (guitar) and Ian Chang (drums).Two years after the eponymous album honoring Billy Strayhorn, Douglas continues his exploration of foundational jazz composers. On this new chapter--Transcend (Greenleaf Music)--he turns to Duke Ellington, drawing in particular from Ellington's Sacred Concerts, performed between 1965 and 1973.Alongside inventive ...

Radio & Podcasts

New Music From Douglas, Xangorchestra, Mycio, HøIby And More

by Bob Osborne
April 2, 2026

The continuum of exploration in the world of jazz runs through this set of fourteen releases, twelve of them brand new. Jazz keeps pressing at its own boundaries while drawing structure and ideas from other musical forms, the result is a playlist that moves cleanly between contrasting approaches. The closing track is presented as a tribute to Don Cherry, yet its energy and scale echo electricperiod Miles Davis, a timely reminder of his influence in his centenary year.Playlist ...

Album Review

Dave Douglas: Four Freedoms

Read "Four Freedoms" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 30, 2026

Inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 “Four Freedoms" speech--articulating freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear--trumpeter Dave Douglas frames Four Freedoms as both political echo and musical proposition. Although the quartet is geographically dispersed--Marta Warelis, Nick Dunston and Joey Baron residing in Europe, Douglas based in New York--the album sounds anything but remote. Distance, instead, sharpens focus. What emerges is a newly formed working band whose cohesion rests on shared vocabulary and ...

Album Review

Aubrey Johnson, Helen Sung, Dave Douglas, David Hajdu: Lives of the Saints: Portraits in Song with Words by David Hajdu

Read "Lives of the Saints: Portraits in Song with Words by David Hajdu" reviewed by Vic Albani

by Vic Albani
January 27, 2026

Chi diavolo è David Hajdu? Ce lo insegna il web: David Hajdu (nato nel 1955 a Phillipsburg, New Jersey con origini ungheresi e italiane) è un editorialista laureato alla New York University, autore e professore statunitense alla Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. È stato critico musicale del New Republic per 12 anni ed è redattore musicale di The Nation. Ha dapprima lavorato come illustratore e poi ha cominciato a scrivere per testate di un certo livello quali il Village ...

Radio & Podcasts

New Music From Douglas, Wolff, Sanford, Lawrence And More

by Bob Osborne
October 9, 2025

The effects and the after-effects of the covid pandemic is a recurring theme in some of this weeks collection of new releases. That such a world-changing and harrowing episode in our history should lead to the production of a variety of ground-breaking music is perhaps a testament to the human race's indomitable spirit and perhaps gives us hope for a brighter future in these challenging times. In addition to the new music there are re-issues of classic albums by Charlie ...

Album Review

Dave Douglas: Alloy

Read "Alloy" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
October 6, 2025

La lega di metalli a cui si riferisce Dave Douglas nel suo ultimo lavoro è quella delle trombe nella front-line. Tre personalità differenti, che si fondono in un tenace amalgama musicale, il cui prodotto ha caratteristiche di versatilità, elasticità, brillantezza, empatia. Ma è senz'altro possibile estendere tali caratteristiche all'intera formazione messa in scena dal trombettista, scaturita da una commissione del Festival of New Trumpet Music. Un gruppo inedito e singolare nel suo organico strumentale, con una coppia di ritmi accanto ...

Festival

Festival Of New Trumpet Music (font Music) Announces 2024 Festival

Source: Lydia Liebman Promotions
August 3, 2024

The Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT Music) is thrilled to announce its 2024 program, celebrating trumpet music from around the globe. This year’s festival will be held from September 9-15, 2024, and will comprise both virtual and in-person programming, held at venues across New York City, Queens, and Brooklyn, and even Buffalo NY. This year, FONT will honor the legendary Jon Faddis with the 2024 Award of Recognition, which will be awarded at the Louis Armstrong House Museum. FONT ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Dave Douglas

Source: Michael Ricci
March 24, 2023

All About Jazz is celebrating Dave Douglas' birthday today!

Dave Douglas is a prolific trumpeter, composer, educator and entrepreneur from New York City known for the stylistic breadth of his work and for keeping a diverse set of ensembles and projects active simultaneously. His unique contributions to improvised music have garnered distinguished recognition, including a Doris Duke Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland award, and two Grammy Award nominations. Douglas' career spans more than 60 unique original recordings ...
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Festival

Festival Of New Trumpet Music Celebrates 20th Season, September 7-14, 2022

Source: Lukas Frei
August 25, 2022

FONT was conceived out of humble beginnings: a post-gig conversation, a sketch on a cocktail napkin, and an ambition to spotlight the full expressive range of the trumpet through the voices of its manifold practitioners. What started on that cocktail napkin twenty years ago has grown into something we never could have dreamed of: featuring over fifty artists from around the globe and nine different events, this year’s festival is the most ambitious edition of FONT to date, and we ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Dave Douglas

Source: Michael Ricci
March 24, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Dave Douglas' birthday today!

Festival

Festival Of New Trumpet Music 2021 announces Brass Without Borders, September 8-15, 2021

Source: Lukas Frei
September 8, 2021

A GLOBAL CELEBRATION OF THE EXTRAORDINARY DIVERSITY IN CURRENT MUSIC FOR THE TRUMPET For almost 20 years, the Festival Of New Trumpet Music has embraced innovation and the unheard. Led by Dave Douglas, this small festival defies stylistic categories and presents exciting music centered around the trumpet each year, in previous years at clubs and stages around New York City. The pandemic-related all-digital version of 2020 was the occasion to be able to present trumpeters from all over the world ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Dave Douglas

Source: Michael Ricci
March 24, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Dave Douglas' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Dave Douglas

Source: Michael Ricci
March 24, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Dave Douglas' birthday today!

Dave Douglas is a prolific trumpeter, composer, educator and entrepreneur from New York City known for the stylistic breadth of his work and for keeping a diverse set of ensembles and projects active simultaneously. His unique contributions to improvised music have garnered distinguished recognition, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland award, and two GRAMMY nominations. While his career spans more than 40 recordings as a leader, his active projects include ...
read more

Recording

Dave Douglas w/ Caine & Cyrille + Mary Lou Wiliams

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
September 15, 2019

Dave Douglas is a trumpeter whose adherence to basic jazz values justifies the title of the new album that he shares with pianist Uri Caine and drummer Andrew Cyrille in their unusual trio. How unusual? First of all, there is no bassist to help with harmonic and rhythmic responsibilities. At the piano, Caine takes care of business in both departments, abetted by Cyrille, a drummer whose strength and drive have seemed to intensify as he built on the qualities that ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Dave Douglas

Source: Michael Ricci
March 24, 2019

Radio

Talk Mode with Eamonn Lenihan—New Podcast Series Offers Three Jazz Interviews A Week

Source: All About Jazz
November 14, 2018

“Duke Ellington reckoned ‘Too much talk stinks up the place’. And of course it must be about the music. But sincere, intelligent conversation can lead to enlightenment. My role, as podcast host, is to steer guests away from bland, chat show patter into areas of genuine interest…” —Eamonn Lenihan Talk Mode, the very first podcast by broadcaster Eamonn Lenihan, launched on November 2nd. It’s a series he feels will appeal to seasoned jazz lovers and newcomers alike. Exclusive interviews will ...
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"Dave Douglas is the unassuming king of independent jazz, a model of do-it-yourself moxie, initiative and artistic freedom." Frank Alkyer, Publisher, Down Beat