Doug Lawrence (jazz)

Lawrence was born into a musical family in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[1] His father and two of his older three brothers were professional musicians who worked and recorded with Jack Teagarden, Elvis Presley, Ike and Tina Turner, Edgar Winter, The Righteous Brothers, Louis Bellson and others, and both of his sisters played musical instruments.[2] His mother was a dancer and played piano. Lawrence graduated high school from Highland High School (Albuquerque, New Mexico) and studied music at North Texas State University, the University of New Mexico and was a member of the Jazz Knights, a jazz ensemble of the West Point Band.[3][4]

Lawrence spent over 25 years in New York City, collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Roy Eldridge, Nancy Wilson (jazz singer), Joe Williams (jazz singer), Teri Thornton, Benny Goodman and others.[5] He has also recorded with many prominent jazz musicians such as Buck Clayton, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Wild Bill Davis, Hank Jones, Mel Lewis, Frank Wess, Grover Mitchell, Loren Schoenberg, Butch Miles and Jimmy Cobb as well as recording six albums as a leader - "Soul Carnival",[6] "High Heel Sneakers",[7] "Big Band Swing"[8] "Street Wise"[9] and "Doug Lawrence and Friends".[10] Lawrence served in the West Point Band's Jazz Knights in the early 1980s as the lead tenor saxophonist.

Lawrence has been a featured performer at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Village Vanguard, the Walt Disney Concert Hall and at international concert halls and jazz festivals including the Sydney Opera House, the Moscow International House of Music, the Blue Note Tokyo, Telluride Jazz Celebration and the North Sea Jazz Festival. Since 1996 Lawrence has been, and is currently, the featured tenor saxophone soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra. In 2020 Lawrence began working with the iconic organist Joey DeFrancesco in DeFrancesco's "Tenor Madness" band. After Mr DeFrancesco's untimely death on August 25, 2022, the band continued on with Dan Trudell taking Mr DeFrancesco's place on organ. This band features longtime Harry Connick Jr. tenor saxophonist Jerry Weldon and Lawrence in a quartet or quintet setting. [11] Lawrence also works regularly with pianist George Cables and drummer Louis Hayes among others. [12] Lawrence leads his own bands usually called the Doug Lawrence Organic Trio, Quartet, Quintet or Sextet and Doug Lawrence and his Nuevo Mexicanos.[13] Lawrence frequently appears as guest clinician and artist-in-residence at universities and jazz camps around the world.[14]

Lawrence currently lives in New Mexico, US with his daughter.[15]

• Doug Lawrence official website
• Count Basie website, Richard Barnhart
• Jimmy Cobb website
• Doug Lawrence Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2022)