About Greenleaf Music
Hi, this is Dave Douglas writing.
After recording for wonderful independent labels, followed by five years and seven recording projects on a major label, I decided to create my own music company, Greenleaf Music. Greenleaf is a name that runs back a couple centuries in my family history. I couldn’t have done it without the help of my friend Michael Friedman, who runs Premonition. He talked me into this, and I am grateful for that. Greenleaf has become, over the years, an umbrella company for everything that I do, including supporting and promoting the careers of artists whose work I believe in.
In 2005 Greenleaf released our first production, Mountain Passages, a piece that was recorded to honor my father, Damon Greenleaf Douglas. He was the person, more than anyone else, who got me started and kept me going in music.
In the years since, we’ve made over 80 productions, including all of my major recorded projects: Quintets, Big Bands, Large Ensembles, Electric Groups, Chamber Music, and Experimental Projects. Greenleaf has also allowed me to record exclusive-to-subscribers projects in which I can release one track a month in an unfolding series.
Greenleaf has created recordings for artists like Kneebody (with Shane Endsley, Ben Wendel, Adam Benjamin, Kaveh Rastegar, and Nate Wood), Nicole Mitchell, Donny McCaslin, Linda May Han Oh, Rudy Royston, Ryan Keberle, Greg Ward, Michael Bates, and Curtis Robert MacDonald.
2019 saw a new artist on the roster, German drummer and composer Mareike Wiening. In 2020 we are celebrated our 15th Anniversary and looked to releases by Anna Webber/Angela Morris Big Band, Mike Fahie Jazz Orchestra, and the Manuel Valera Big Band. The subscriber series recording is my own piece, Marching Music, which I recorded with Rafiq Bhatia, Melvin Gibbs, and Sim Cain. Greenleaf also released my homage to Dizzy Gillespie, entitled Dizzy Atmosphere, featuring trumpeter Dave Adewumi, alongside Fabian Almazan, Matt Stevens, Carmen Rothwell, and Joey Baron. Towards the end of 2020, we welcomed brilliant shamisen player and vocalist/composer Emi Makabe. Her recording, Anniversary, features her alongside her husband, the bassist Thomas Morgan, Viktor Gonzalves, and Kenny Wollesen.
With assistance from Palo Alto based organization ‘Lions With Wings,’ I was able to produce, entirely recorded remotely, an album with the two vocalists Fay Victor and Camila entitled, Overcome. The rest of the band is myself, Ryan Keberle, Jorge Roeder, and Rudy Royston. The music is much about overcoming our current predicament as about making making big changes in the leadership of our country. We are cautiously optimistic that such change is underway.
In a new and fair approach for artists, Greenleaf Music shares profits 50/50. This includes our subscription model, where we give a proportional payment to artists based on their catalog presence. Ours is a radical reinvention of industry standards which we hope you will be proud to support.
Our profit sharing model
From the beginning, Greenleaf Music has offered 50/50 profit sharing deals with all of its artists. That means that after costs are covered, Greenleaf and its artists have an equal share of the profits from digital and physical album sales. In case you were wondering, this is a far cry from traditional recording deals, which are famously exploitative of artists.
Our profit sharing model also extends to our subscription platform. When you subscribe to Greenleaf Music, you get access to our entire catalog of recordings, including exclusive-to-subscriber content. The revenue from your subscription is then pooled and shared among our artists, proportional to their presence in the catalog. If you aren’t a current Greenleaf subscriber, please join us today and join the global community that’s directly benefiting our artists.
We view our profit shares as new progressive models for the music and recording fields. And we couldn’t do it without your continued support!
Our Podcast: A NOISE FROM THE DEEP
Since 2013, Greenleaf has produced a podcast, A Noise From The Deep, which features interviews with some of the era’s most creative and insightful musicians. The podcast is a free recorded series which you can get at our website, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. I produce these podcasts out of the joy of learning about the creative process. There is currently no advertising sponsorship for this project. It’s pure music.