Dave Douglas: Transcend Is Not the End

This week, we're putting The Tonearm's needle on trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas.

Douglas’s latest album, Transcend, came out in April. It's the second record from GIFTS, his band with Rafiq Bhatia, James Brandon Lewis, Tomeka Reid, and Ian Chang. His last several records were openly political. This one turns toward the sacred, though we explore where that either/or framing falls short.

We also talk about painter and sculptor Jack Whitten, why Dave stayed with this band instead of moving on (his usual m.o,), and whether, at 63, he's summing anything up.

(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Dave Douglas's Transcend )

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Dig Deeper

Artist and Album:

• Visit Dave Douglas and explore his catalog at Greenleaf Music
• Follow Dave Douglas on Bluesky, Instagram, and Facebook
• Purchase Transcend from Greenleaf Music, Bandcamp, or Qobuz, and listen on your streaming platform of choice
• Check out the debut GIFTS album on Bandcamp
• Dave Douglas's podcast, A Noise From the Deep

The Band — GIFTS:

• Rafiq Bhatia — guitarist, composer, producer; member of Son Lux
• James Brandon Lewis — tenor saxophonist and composer
• Tomeka Reid — cellist, composer, 2022 MacArthur Fellow
• Ian Chang — drummer, composer; member of Son Lux

Referenced Works and Artists:

• Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts — three landmark works premiered between 1965 and 1973
• Jack Whitten: The Messenger — the retrospective at MoMA (March–August 2025) that shaped Transcend
• Booker Little — the trumpeter whose 1960–61 records broke open Douglas's compositional thinking
• Jaimie Branch — trumpeter and composer, 1983–2022
• Steve Reich — composer, discussed in the context of minimalism and process

Books:

• A Poetry Handbook by Ma