Dave Douglas: breaking boundaries

by Christine Elmgren

Director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music since 2002, Dave Douglas brings a renewed sense of vigour and innovation to the Centre’s jazz program. For Douglas, the Banff experience is all about breaking boundaries and forging connections:

As director of the program, how would you describe its impact on participants?
Perhaps the biggest impact this program has is that it draws participants into the wider world of current jazz and creative music practice. Being an artist one can get very isolated, even in the biggest cities, so one powerful aspect of the Banff jazz program is the sense of community.

That might seem like a paradox because so many people come to Banff to "get away from it all." But I have found that the jazz workshop, with 70 participants and roughly 15 visiting artists, brings people together and reinforces the real reason we do this: to communicate with others. Most participants go away feeling like they are part of something, and many of them keep in touch and continue to work together over the years.

With the kind of community found at Banff comes a reinvigorated sense of what it takes to live the creative life of a musician. Musicians go away with a seriousness of purpose and an armload of music to work on. And the sense that they are part of a field in which many musicians are putting in the hard work necessary to make great music.

What is the single greatest aspect of the program?
That's hard to say because there's so much!

I can't answer for everyone, but I think the performance opportunities are one of the most unique aspects of the program. We put on about 15 shows a week, and musicians are in the recording studio almost every day. With that many musicians on the scene there is always playing going on, and the thrill of writing new music and having it played immediately is electrifying.

It's very special for participants to live and work in such close contact to the visiting artists, many of them among the busiest and most in-demand musicians in the world. There are almost no barriers and no limits to the questions that can be asked and topics covered. It's a rare opportunity to exchange information.

What do you plan for the future?
Over the past few years, we have seen a shift towards more instruments not traditionally associated with jazz: strings, electronics, banjo. That's an exciting development I will try to encourage. This year we had our first turntablist on the faculty – DJ Olive.

I believe the jazz and creative music program ought to deal more with composition and the conceptual issues vital to the field of new music. My plans are to continue to move in that direction, inviting some of the great innovators in the music to Banff.

An internationally-lauded composer and musician, Dave Douglas has been named trumpeter, composer, and jazz artist of the year by such organizations as the New York Jazz Awards, Downbeat, Jazz Times, Jazziz, and the Italian Jazz Critics’ Society. Douglas has released over 20 CDs and with his ensemble, has toured widely since 1994 performing at major jazz and new music festivals around the world.