A sound of
his own.

Doug Ellington is a Bay Area trumpeter, composer and producer whose music refuses to sit still. Rock, hip-hop, R&B and jazz all fold into a single voice that critics have called “seductive, catchy and still unpredictable.”

“I wasn't raised to think in terms of genres,” Doug explains. “I was raised to think in terms of sound.” He continues: “I was classically trained, and as an Ellington, jazz was simply omnipresent. But most importantly, having friends from all walks of life allowed everything else to just filter in through osmosis.”

That philosophy runs through everything he makes. Working out of Lama Box, his recording studio in Oakland, and leading his band A New Urban Groove, Doug does nearly all of it himself — writing, arranging, performing, singing and engineering. On his album Din In the Distance, as he puts it, “the greatest privilege of having some of the greatest voices in the area lend their talents on it makes it dream worthy.”

Inspiration

One name anchors it all. Duke Ellington — Duke — is the artist he returns to again and again, in his own writing. “Duke is at the core of everything I do,” he says, unable to name a single favorite song because the whole catalog lives in him.

Doug thinks Miles Davis said it best: “It doesn't matter which instrument you play, everyone should just put everything down at least once a year, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.”

“Duke is at the core of everything I do.”

The trumpet & the board

Best known as a trumpet player, Doug is just as at home behind the mixing board. That dual life — the horn out front, the producer's ear behind it — is what gives his records their depth: warm, late-night, unmistakably his. It's music that isn't afraid of a beat, soul that isn't afraid of the avant-garde, and distinctly a world view.