- Dave Douglas (trumpeter)
-
Dave Douglas 
Dave Douglas at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2007.Background information Born March 24, 1963 Genres jazz
free jazz
electronic music
worldOccupations composer/bandleader/sideman Instruments trumpet Years active 1984–present Labels Greenleaf Music, RCA, Winter & Winter Arabesque, Soul Note Associated acts Masada Website davedouglas.com Notable instruments trumpet, cornet Dave Douglas (b. March 24, 1963) is an American jazz trumpeter and composer whose music derives from many non-jazz musical styles, including classical music, folk music from European countries and Klezmer. He has been a member of the experimental big band Orange Then Blue. Douglas is currently the director of the Festival of New Trumpet Music, which is held annually in New York City.
Since 1993, Douglas has recorded more than twenty albums as a bandleader. He has also performed and recorded with dozens of musicians, perhaps most notably with various John Zorn ensembles. With his own groups, Douglas has pioneered new settings for the trumpet in jazz.[1] In more recent years, he has explored collaborations involving modern dance, spoken word/poetry, and film.[citation needed]
Contents
Early years
Douglas grew up in the New York City area and attended Phillips Exeter Academy, a private high school in New Hampshire. He discovered jazz while on an abroad program in Spain. After graduating from high school in 1981, he studied at the Berklee School of Music and New England Conservatory, both located in Boston, Massachusetts.[1]
In 1984, Douglas moved to New York to study at New York University (NYU) and finished a degree in music. Meanwhile, he played with a variety of ensembles and came to the attention of the well-respected jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, Horace Silver, with whom he toured Europe in 1987.[1]
1990s
Dave Douglas (in black) with Masada
In 1993, Douglas began performing with John Zorn in his Masada quartet, which blended the influences of saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman with Jewish folk musics. The band became one of Zorn's most long-standing and popular ensembles, and brought Douglas wider attention.[2]
Since the mid 90s, Douglas has led a variety of groups simultaneously. His first album as a leader, Parallel Worlds (1993), featured the composer backed by a string trio performing his own compositions and music by Webern, Kurt Weill and Stravinsky. Meanwhile Douglas formed two new groups, the Tiny Bell Trio, and his sextet. The former performs what Douglas calls "Balkan improvisations." It is unusual in its instrumentation (trumpet, guitar, drums) and blends Eastern European folk influences with jazz. The Sextet features the classic instrumentation of trumpet, tenor sax, trombone, piano, bass, and drums. This group focuses on the music of great jazz composers and Douglas pieces inspired by those musicians. Their first release was a tribute to the late trumpeter Booker Little.
In 1996, Douglas recorded Sanctuary with Cuong Vu, Anthony Coleman, and other musicians of the New York downtown scene of the time. The group involved sampling and DJ improvisations in addition to jazz.
In 1997, Douglas started a quartet featuring trumpet, violin, accordion, and bass which recorded Charms of the Night Sky incorporating Eastern European and Jewish folk musics as well as jazz influences on the music, which is generally mellow and relaxed. The album included a number of tracks with Douglas and accordionist Guy Klucevsek performing as a duo. A second album by the Charms of the Niht Sky group, A Thousand Evenings was released in 2000.
Also in 1997, Douglas founded another quartet. The Dave Douglas Quartet performs wild, freewheeling music, influenced by the bands of Ornette Coleman and John Zorn.
2000s
SFJAZZ Collective—from left to right: Andre Hayward, Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano and Miguel Zenón at the North Sea Jazz Festival of 2007. Photo by Siebe van IneveldIn 2000, Douglas released Soul on Soul, a tribute to composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams featuring original arrangements of her music for the sextet and new pieces inspired by her work. Douglas also released albums featuring Charms of the Night Sky and the Dave Douglas Quartet in the same year.
In the early years of the decade, Douglas worked often with the Trisha Brown Dance Company. El Trilogy, an extended musical work accompanying modern dance, was performed from 2000-2001.
Witness, an ambitious nine-part suite, was released in 2001. It features a band made up of trumpet, sax, two electric pianos, electronic percussion, bass, and drums. Douglas's music had always been informed by his political concerns, but this album was his most ambitious attempt to give them musical form, often by celebrating his political and cultural heroes through dedications and track titles. The album includes a 20 minute track entitled "Mahfouz" in which gravel-voiced singer Tom Waits reads an excerpt from the works of Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, as well as pieces dedicated to Edward Said and Taslima Nasrin.
More recently, Douglas founded the Dave Douglas New Quintet and Nomad.[1] The Quintet is a trumpet and tenor sax-led group but with Fender Rhodes electric piano. Their first album, The Infinite (2001) featured Douglas originals and pieces by or inspired by popular musicians Rufus Wainwright and Thom Yorke. This was followed up by 2004's Strange Liberation by the same group with special guest Bill Frisell on guitar. Formed in 2003, Nomad is made up of trumpet, clarinet, cello, tuba, and drums. With this band, Douglas performed his suite Mountain Passages, commissioned for the Italian Sound of the Dolomites Festival, and released as the first album on Douglas' record label Greenleaf Music in 2005. The suite features a variety of different influences including Italian Ladino music, New Orleans jazz, and other musics, and is to be played from 9 to 12,000 feet above sea level.
Douglas has also started a new band called Keystone, which performs works influenced by the silent film actor and director Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. The project includes pieces to be performed with Arbuckle's films. This ensemble is made up of trumpet, tenor sax, Wurlitzer (electric piano), turntables, electric bass, and drums. A CD of this music – accompanied by a DVD with two Arbuckle shorts – was released in 2005.
2006 saw Douglas release Meaning and Mystery, where he plays again with his quintet, now with Donny McCaslin in place of Chris Potter on saxophones. In December 2006, Greenleaf Music recorded all the quintet's performances over a six-night engagement at New York's Jazz Standard jazz club called Live at the Jazz Standard (Complete Book), making the two-hour-long sets the band played each night available for download from the company's website within 24 hours. The 44 compositions, almost all of them by Douglas alongside covers of Rufus Wainwright, Mary J. Blige and Björk, featured 14 tunes not previously recorded by the band. Those 14 new compositions were release on a 2-CD set, Live at the Jazz Standard, in 2007.
In late 2007, Moonshine, a further recording by Keystone was released. This was based upon recordings made of a live concert performance by the band at that year's Bray Jazz Festival in Ireland. The Keystone band then led a 5-night run at Jazz Standard in New York in April 2008. Greenleaf Music recorded and released all ten sets through their website as a download-only series, Keystone: Live at Jazz Standard (Complete Book).
In 2009, Douglas released two albums: Spirit Moves by his Brass Ecstasy band which featured Vincent Chancey, Luis Bonilla, Marcus Rojas and Nasheet Waits; and his first album of big band compositions, A Single Sky, a collaboration with Jim McNeely and the Frankfurt Radio Bigband.
Discography
As leader
Title Year Label Parallel Worlds 1993 Soul Note The Tiny Bell Trio 1994 Songlines In Our Lifetime 1995 New World Constellations 1995 hatHUT Five 1996 Soul Note Live in Europe 1997 Arabesque Sanctuary 1997 Avant Stargazer 1997 Arabesque Moving Portrait 1998 DIW Charms of the Night Sky 1998 Winter & Winter Magic Triangle 1998 Arabesque Convergence 1999 Soul Note Songs for Wandering Souls 1999 Winter & Winter Soul on Soul 2000 RCA Leap of Faith 2000 Arabesque A Thousand Evenings 2000 RCA El Trilogy 2001 BMG Witness 2001 RCA The Infinite 2002 RCA Freak In 2003 Bluebird Strange Liberation 2004 RCA Bow River Falls 2004 Koch Mountain Passages 2005 Greenleaf Music Live at the Bimhuis Set 1 & 2 2005 Greenleaf Music Keystone 2005 Greenleaf Music Meaning and Mystery 2006 Greenleaf Music Keystone: Live in Sweden 2006 Greenleaf Music Live at the Jazz Standard (Complete Book) (12 set run, download-only release) 2006 Greenleaf Music Live at the Jazz Standard (2-CD) 2007 Greenleaf Music Moonshine 2007 Greenleaf Music Keystone: Live at Jazz Standard (Complete Book) (10 set run, download-only release) 2008 Greenleaf Music Spirit Moves 2009 Greenleaf Music A Single Sky 2009 Greenleaf Music Spark Of Being (3CD) 2010 Greenleaf Music United Front: Brass Ecstasy at Newport 2011 Greenleaf Music GPS, V1: Rare Metals 2011 Greenleaf Music GPS, V2: Orange Afternoons 2011 Greenleaf Music GPS, V3: Bad Mango 2011 Greenleaf Music As sideman
Album artist Title Year Label Second Sight Second Sight 1988 Sun Jump Records Vincent Herring American Experience 1989 Musicmasters New and Used Souvenir 1991 Knitting Factory Works Orange Then Blue While You Were Out 1992 GM Recordings The Band Jericho 1993 Pyramid/Rhino Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz 1993 Elektra Mark Dresser Force Green 1994 Soul Note Masada Masada, Vol. 1: Alef 1994 DIW Mosaic Sextet Today, This Moment 1994 Konnex Mark Dresser The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1995 Knitting Factory Works New and Used Consensus 1995 Knitting Factory Works Masada Masada, Vol. 2: Beit 1995 DIW Masada Masada, Vol. 3: Gimel 1995 DIW Masada Masada, Vol. 5: Hei 1995 DIW Masada Masada, Vol. 6: Vav 1995 DIW Fontella Bass No Ways Tired 1995 Nonesuch Records Fred Hersch Point in Time 1995 Enja Anthony Braxton & Mario Pavone Seven Standards 1995 1995 Knitting Factory Works John Zorn Bar Kokhba 1996 Tzadik Suzanne Vega Nine Objects of Desire 1996 A&M Records Myra Melford The Same River, Twice 1996 Gramavision Records Dave Douglas and Han Bennink Serpentine 1996 Songlines Recordings Sheryl Crow Sheryl Crow 1996 A&M Records Uri Caine Toys 1996 Winter & Winter John Zorn Filmworks III: 1990-1995 1997 Tzadik Marc Ribot Shoe String Symphonettes 1997 Tzadik Uri Caine Urlicht/Primal Light 1997 Winter & Winter François Houle & Dave Douglas In the Vernacular: The Music of John Carter 1998 Songlines Recordings Sean Lennon Into the Sun 1998 Capitol Records Masada Masada, Vol. 7: Zayin 1998 DIW Masada Masada, Vol. 8: Het 1998 DIW Masada Masada, Vol. 9: Tet 1998 DIW Masada Masada, Vol. 10: Yod 1998 DIW Patricia Barber Modern Cool 1998 Premonition Records What We Live Quintet for a Day 1998 New World Records Greg Cohen Way Low 1998 DIW Cibo Matto Stereo ★ Type A 1999 Warner Bros. Records Myra Melford Above Blue 1999 Arabesque Records Sean Lennon Half Horse Half Musician 1999 EMI Masada Masada, Vol. 4: Dalet 1999 DIW Masada Masada, Vol. 7: Zayin 1999 DIW Masada Live in Jerusalem 1994 1999 Tzadik Masada Live in Middleheim 1999 1999 Tzadik Masada Live in Taipei 1995 1999 Tzadik Uri Caine The Sidewalks of New York: Tin Pan Alley 1999 Winter & Winter Masada Live in Sevilla 2000 1999 Tzadik What We Live Trumpets 2000 Black Saint Joe Lovano Flights of Fancy: Trio Fascination Edition Two 2001 Blue Note Records Misha Mengelberg Quartet Four in One 2001 Blue Note Records John Zorn The Gift 2001 Tzadik Masada Live at Tonic 2001 2001 Tzadik Mosaic Sextet Mosaic Sextet 2001 GM Recordings Brad Shepik Trio Short Trip 2001 Knitting Factory Works Masada First Live 1993 2002 Tzadik Patricia Barber Verse 2002 Premonition Records Myra Melford Even the Sounds Shine 2003 Hathut Records John Zorn The Unknown Masada 2003 Tzadik Masada 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 7 2004 Tzadik Masada Sanhedrin 1994-1997 2005 Tzadik Martial Solal & Dave Douglas Rue de Seine 2006 Sunnyside Anthony Braxton Six Standards (Quintet) 1996 2006 Splasc(h) Kenny Werner Lawn Chair Society 2007 Blue Note Records Masada with Joe Lovano Stolas: Book of Angels Volume 12 2009 Tzadik References
- ^ a b c d Kelsey, Chris. "Dave Douglas: Biography". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/dave-douglas-p71918/biography. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
- ^ Layne, Joslyn. "Masada: Live in Taipei: Review". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/masada-live-in-taipei-r415831. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
External links
Categories:- 1963 births
- Living people
- Klezmer musicians
- Post-bop trumpeters
- Experimental big band trumpeters
- American trumpeters
- American jazz trumpeters
- American composers
- American jazz composers
- Phillips Exeter Academy alumni
- Arabesque Records artists
- RCA Records artists
- Guggenheim Fellows
- Avant-garde jazz trumpeters
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