This episode of The Other Side of the Bell, featuring trumpet composer educator and entrepreneur Dave Douglas, is brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass.
This episode also appears as a video episode on our YouTube channel, you can find it here:
"Dave Douglas trumpet interview"
About Dave Douglas:
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 most recent project is a rotating ensemble under the name Gifts, and the resulting album included guitarist Rafiq Bhatia, drummer Ian Chang and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis. The group toured and added cellist Tomeka Reid. In January 2025, Gifts Trio featuring drummer Kate Gentile and guitarist Camila Meza, played live shows in London and throughout Europe.
Douglas' 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 75 unique original recordings as a leader and more than 500 published works.
In August 2024, Sound Prints, the band Douglas co-leads with saxophonist Joe Lovano, performed for a week at New York's storied Village Vanguard, unveiling an entire new set of works from both composers. The band will appear again at the Vanguard in November 2025. Other ensembles include OVERCOME, with vocalists Fay Victor and Camila Meza plus musicians 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.
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 FONT aka Festival of New Trumpet Music, which will celebrate its 22nd year in 2025. In 2024, Douglas presented a new group in honor of cofounder Roy Campbell, Jr. The sextet, called Alloy, recorded in January 2025 and will release new music in September 2025.
He is currently on the faculty at Mannes School of Music and The New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. He was Artistic Director of the Bergamo Jazz Festival for four years, ending in 2019.
In 2025, Douglas will begin a two year residency with the Malmo Academy of Music in Sweden, where he will help in developing a new Masters of Music Composer-Performer.
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 now produced countless albums and this year will celebrate its twentieth anniversary.
His podcast, A Noise From The Deep, features engaging interviews with more than 100 creative artists. The show recently diversified with the launch of spin-off Puzzle Corner, which pairs Douglas with NPR's Art Chung, for a fun round of jazz trivia. Greenleaf Music is a pioneering independent music platform with a strong subscription model featuring hours of exclusive content.
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