Dave Douglas

Born March 24, 1963, in Montclair, New Jersey, Douglas grew up in the New York Metropolitan area. He started playing piano at age five and trombone at seven before discovering the trumpet two years later. He learned jazz and classical harmony in high school and began playing improvised music as an exchange student in Barcelona, Spain in 1978. From 1981 to 1983, Douglas studied in Boston at the Berklee School of Music and the New England Conservatory. He cites Igor Stravinsky, John Coltrane, and Stevie Wonder as primary influences on his music. Moving to New York City in 1984, he attended New York University, studying trumpet with Carmine Caruso, and performed around the city with jazz, funk and experimental music groups. From 1987 to 1990 he toured internationally with artists such as Horace Silver, Vincent Herring, Tim Berne, Don Byron, Dr. Nerve, and the Bread and Puppet Theater. He began to record in earnest in the 1990s and his discography includes recordings on the BlueBird/RCA, Hat Art, Soul Note, New World, Arabesque, Songlines and Winter & Winter labels.

Dave Douglas is widely recognized as one of the most important and original American musicians to emerge from the jazz and improvised music scene of the last decades. His collaborations as a trumpeter read like a who's who of important contemporary artists: John Zorn, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, Don Byron, Steve Lacy, Fred Hersch, Anthony Braxton, Myra Melford, Andy Bey, Nick Didkovsky, Trisha Brown, Terry Winters, Jennifer Tipton, Louis Sclavis, Henry Grimes, Tim Berne, Tom Waits, Rabih Abou-Khalil, DJ Olive, Ikue Mori, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Chris Potter, Uri Caine, Mark Turner, Roswell Rudd, Andrew Cyrille, Marc Ribot, Karsh Kale, Mark Dresser, Mark Feldman, Marty Ehrlich, and many others.

Douglas has received fellowships for his work from the Guggenheim Foundation (2005), National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and Arts International, which helped finance a trip to India in 1998. Dave was recently commissioned by the Vooruit Culture Center in Ghent, Belgium to write music for the contemporary chamber music ensemble Ictus. The resulting 'Flemish Primitives' were performed in Ghent in March 2002. The New York based Extension Ensemble commissioned a brass quintet entitled 'Private Music' which premiered in 2001 and was recorded by the ensemble for an upcoming release. The Library of Congress' McKim Fund supported the composition of 'Irrational Exuberance' in 1999, and the piece was performed at the Library's Coolidge Auditorium by Mark Feldman and Sylvie Courvoisier in October of that year. In November 1998, Dave took part in Southwest German Radio's "New Jazz Meeting," collaborating on pieces with Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil and French clarinetist Louis Sclavis. Douglas has also toured as a guest with the Clusone Trio (Michael Moore, Ernst Reijseger, and Han Bennink), one of Holland's most exciting improvising ensembles.

In addition to his work as a trumpeter, composer and bandleader leading a wave of innovative, ground breaking and socially and politically aware artists, Douglas is also a sought after educator. He has given master classes and workshops at universities and schools worldwide, including Harvard College, University of North Texas, Eastman College, and New York University. In addition, Douglas holds down the position of Artistic Director at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music.