Dave Douglas

"If There Are Mountains" is the first album by Dave Douglas and Elan Mehler as co-leaders, setting poetry and specifically haiku within the context of improvising music.

“How often do we step back and realize what a gift it is to have this music in our life?” asks acclaimed trumpeter, composer and Greenleaf Music founder Dave Douglas. On Gifts, his newest Greenleaf project, Douglas harnesses that feeling of simple wonder with a new book of pieces and four intriguing takes on Strayhorn songs, premiering a new quartet with poll-sweeping tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and two members of the Oscar-nominated post-rock trio Son Lux: guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang. The sound is harmonically spacious, with no bass, but a full, sonically adventurous guitar palette from Bhatia that frames the group’s trumpet-tenor melodic concept in fresh and unexpected ways.

When Dizzy Gillespie put his hat in the ring for President of the United States in 1964, he also offered to be the first African-American astronaut, just in case they couldn’t find anyone else. In making Dizzy Atmosphere, Dave Douglas’s tribute to the great trumpeter, composer and humanist, Douglas said he wanted to explore Dizzy’s experimental and wide open mind as well as the influence of his music.

Saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas debuted their extraordinary Sound Prints quintet on Blue Note Records in 2013, the year of Wayne Shorter’s 80th birthday, and from the outset the group had a joyful but somewhat imposing mandate: to lift up Shorter’s legacy through the writing and performance of new music conceived in his risk-taking, fearlessly inventive spirit. Supported by a powerful multi-generational lineup of pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Joey Baron, the group debuted with Sound Prints: Live at Monterey Jazz Festival, which included world-premiere performances of two brand-new Shorter pieces.

Named after Wayne Shorter's classic composition "Footprints," the Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas quintet Sound Prints is a collaborative ensemble born out of the duo's involvement in the 2008 SFJAZZ Collective's tribute concert to legendary jazz saxophonist Shorter. Inspired to continue the creative spark they ignited at that event, saxophonist Lovano and trumpeter Douglas conceived of a group that would play original compositions, as well as new material from Shorter. The group's 2015 concert album, Sound Prints: Live at Monterey Jazz Festival, showcases their debut appearance at the famed jazz event. Joining Lovano and Douglas here are pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda Oh, and drummer Joey Baron…