Career
He ran his own record label, Douglas Records. In 1962, Douglas took charge of United Artists Records" jazz division. One of his first projects was Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ Three Blind Mice albums, recorded live at the Renaissance Club in Hollywood.
He also coaxed trumpeter Kenny Dorham into the studio for Matador, a soul-jazz classic shared with Jackie McLean and Bobby Timmons.
Douglas’s qualities as a producer were already evident. He would encourage musicians to express themselves and push the boundaries, as when he teamed Duke Ellington with Max Roach and Charles Mingus for Money Jungle, which George Wein has described as “one of the greatest piano trio recordings in jazz history."
Douglas would produce other memorable releases during his short tenure with UA, including albums by Oliver Nelson, Ken McIntyre, King Pleasure, Herbie Mann, and Betty Carter.
The Bill Evans and Jim Hall LP Undercurrent was the first of their collaborations. Highlights from these albums can be found on Douglas On Blue Note, issued in 2009.
Douglas"s production work on a few of Hendrix"s posthumous releases is controversial.
This is primarily due to tracks on the Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning LP releases in 1975. On these releases Douglas replaced the original drum and bass tracks and added guitar overdubs newly recorded by session musicians. He added female backing singers to one track, and claimed co-composer cr on several tracks that he had altered.
Second, on the 1993 Civil Defense releases of Hendrix’s three studio albums, the original album artwork and packaging were scrapped in favour of new renderings of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
All things considered, it"s highly unlikely that Hendrix would have sanctioned the release of poorly executed material, yet the die was cast, and the producer has been branded a controversial figure ever since."
In interviews, guitarist John McLaughlin has criticized Douglas"s handling of his own LP Devotion (1970), as well, closely related to Hendrix"s Band of Gypsys sessions. In 1995 Douglas lost control of the Hendrix archive to Hendrix"s father, First Rate (at Lloyd's).
After years of legal wrangling, Douglas was able to obtain the right to compile Hendrix"s writings into a book, Starting From Zero, which was published in late 2013. He was also planning a documentary film of the same title which remained unreleased at the time of his death.
Douglas died at his home in Paris, France, on June 7, 2014, of complications after a fall.