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I had a blast talking with Brandon Peckman at WNYU today. Stream our conversation by clicking the image above. Lots of music from different albums and periods of my work. Enjoy!

This Sunday, April 21, from 3pm to 6pm we will gather again at Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn. The main focus of this workshop will be reading the music from my sextet album Soul On Soul, dedicated to Mary Lou Williams. The Workshop will also consider elements of composition and performance, with plenty of time for questions and discussion. Come join us, you can play or just listen.

Many have asked if I switched to what looks like a lovely pocket trumpet. No! That is George Colligan in the recent issue of Downbeat. Wish I could take credit for Time Travel to Portland Jazz fest, but alas I wasn't there this year.

Nice hat, though. Thanks, George.

It's our esteemed privilege to bring a new Dave Douglas album into the world yet again. And he's outdone himself on this one—as he always does! Read more on Time Travel at GreenleafMusic.com, or follow #ddTimeTravel on Twitter.

Following on the heels of the critically acclaimed Be Still, Dave Douglas and his label Greenleaf Music release Time Travel, an all-instrumental follow-up to the album Stereophile called "one of the best-sounding new recordings [we]'ve heard by anybody in quite a while."

Dave Douglas Quintet performing at Aperitivo in Concerto in Milano Italy, March 3, 2013

Dave Douglas, trumpet
Walter Smith III, tenor saxophone
Matt Mitchell, piano
Linda Oh, bass
Rudy Royston, drums

Thrilled the other night at Jazz Standard to see keyboardist Jim Beard! I heard him in several different Wayne Shorter groups around the time I moved to New York, between 1984 and 1989 or so. Beard played all of the Atlantis material with Shorter, as well as playing on the album Phantom Navigator and in subsequent live performances. Since writing about Shorter's new work for The Talkhouse, I have had several interesting conversations about it, and Jim Beard had some observations that hadn't occurred to me.

Jim asked me to pick 5 recordings to share on the occasion of my 50th birthday. Difficult to do as compositions are like children -- how would you pick your favorite? Also like children, they grow and change over time. I would certainly play all of these pieces differently today. Recorded music is an excellent document of a moment in time, but even this fixed medium changes as we perceive things differently. The exhilarating thing about playing music is that as you play you have absolute freedom in time. Move forward, move back, the more the merrier.

We'd like to hear about your first or most powerful musical memory. Comment and we'll put your name in to win a free pair of tickets to the Jazz Standard #ddTimeTravel release shows, or a free download of the new album.

Be Still is an unusual Dave Douglas - if one exists usual - very little composer and arranger. But also, unmistakably, the Dave Douglas which we are accustomed. The musician, regardless of the direction taken, does not miss a beat. The terrific orchestration arranger care in every detail. The excellent breeder of musicians, able to assemble organic perfectly consistent with the music played. And, of course, the magnificent musician who brings out of his trumpet a thousand shades of timbre and expressive.