Ted Daniel, Dave Douglas and Ingrid Jensen recognized for contributions to music and culture of NY
New York State Senator Pete Harckham commemorated Jazz Appreciation Month on Saturday, Apr. 12, by honoring three Senate District 40 residents—Ted Daniel, Dave Douglas and Ingrid Jensen—for their jazz artistry and contributions to the music and culture of the state. The three jazz artists, all trumpet players, were joined by family members and friends at a special ceremony here at the Croton Free Library, where they received Senate Proclamation from Harckham. Croton-on-Hudson Mayor Brian Pugh welcomed the audience to the event.
“Jazz embraces tradition and innovation, finds strength in diverse voices, and allows for both individualistic expression and collective unity,” said Harckham. “I am privileged to honor these three local jazz artists, known around the world, for their incredible contributions to our culture. Their many accomplishments as musicians, composers and educators have benefited us all over the years.”
To see a video of the Jazz Appreciation Month celebration, click here.
Harckham noted that although jazz originated in New Orleans and became popular in Chicago, since the mid-1920s, the beginning of the Jazz Age, New York City has been the jazz capital of the world. And before long, many jazz artists were calling the Hudson Valley home. Daniel, an Ossining native, resides in the house he grew up in, while Jensen and her family moved to the village 14 years ago. Douglas, originally from New York City, has lived in Croton-on-Hudson for the past 21 years.
“Our communities are that much richer for having these artists among us,” said Harckham.
About the honorees:
Ted Daniel is a renowned trumpeter, composer and band leader whose career spans over 30 original recordings and countless live performances as both a leader and side musician, from the late-1960s to the present day.
Daniel began playing the trumpet in elementary school, spurred by his father, an amateur saxophonist; he became serious about jazz in his teens after hearing a recording by legendary trumpeter Clifford Brown; and as a junior in high school started playing music with his close childhood friend, Sonny Sharrock, a guitarist. Deciding to continue his study of trumpet and music, Daniel attended Berklee College of Music for a semester, before transferring to Southern Illinois University, where he studied with trumpeter Fred Berry, then moving to New York City in the mid-1960s and playing with many modern jazz luminaries during a golden era of expression and improvised music in the Black music community.
Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1966, Daniel served in the 9th and 25th Infantry Division during the Vietnam War; after his discharge, he resumed music studies on a scholarship at Central State University in Ohio; upon returning to New York City, Daniel recorded albums with Sharrock and Brute Force, a band co-founded with his older brother Richard, a keyboardist, and also worked with free jazz drummer Sunny Murray.
In the 1970s, while ensconced in the New York Jazz Loft scene, Daniel began releasing albums while leading a variety of groups—trio, sextet and a popular big band called Energy; he also appeared on albums by Sam Rivers, Archie Shepp and Dewey Redman and Andrew Cyrille; along with the trumpet, he also played cornet, flugelhorn, Moroccan bugle (khakhi) and French hunting horn.
As the music business changed in the 1980s, and to achieve a steadier income to support his family, Daniel studied and trained to become a licensed psychotherapist, working for New York State over the next three decades. Daniel continued his jazz artistry nonetheless, working in bands and touring with Henry Threadgill, recording a pair of albums with violinist and fellow Vietnam War veteran Billy Bang, releasing albums with reedman Michael Marcus in a group called Duology, performing at Dave Douglas’s Festival of New Trumpet Music, and forming another influential ensemble, the International Membrane and Brass Corporation (IMBC), which performed music in tribute to cornet player and jazz pioneer King Oliver.
At the Jazz Appreciation Month ceremony, Daniel remarked, “As I approach my 82nd birthday, I recall that it was 72 years ago that my father brought home a trumpet for me and said, ‘You’re going to play that.’ And I did. As I got older, I really enjoyed playing the instrument.” Noting the influence on his musical development after hearing trumpeter Clifford Brown’s album with drummer Max Roach, Study in Brown, while he was in high school, Daniel said that Brown, “a fantastic, elegant and melodic player really just touched me, and that’s what set me out on this mission. I just never stopped playing.”
Ingrid Jensen’s career spans over 50 original recordings and countless live performances around the world as both a leader and side musician, from the early 1990s to the present day; she was named “Jazz Trumpeter of the Year” in 2019 by the Jazz Journalists Association.
Born in Vancouver and raised in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Jensen is the middle of three sisters; after early piano lessons, Jensen began playing trumpet in 7th grade, gradually becoming immersed in the music program at her high school. She entered Malaspina College (now Vancouver Island University), and with the encouragement of alto saxophonist and flautist Bud Shank, moved east to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating in 1989.
After touring with the Vienna Art Orchestra, Jensen taught for several years at the prestigious Bruckner Conservatory in Linz, Austria, the beginning of a long and dedicated career in music education, which has included positions at the University of Michigan, Peabody Conservatory, Purchase College, and the New School in New York City, as well as leading workshops and clinics at the Thelonious Monk Institute High School, Brubeck Institute, Banff Center for Jazz and Creative Music, Stanford Jazz Camp, Geri Allen Jazz Camp for Young Women and the Betty Carter Institute. She is currently Dean and Director of Jazz Arts at the Manhattan School of Music.
Jensen settled in New York City in 1994 and joined the all-women DIVA Jazz Orchestra and also began an 18-year-long association with the Maria Schneider Orchestra; during the same year she released her first album as leader, Vernal Fields, which won a Juno Award. Subsequently, Jensen has worked and collaborated with a galaxy of jazz luminaries, including Clark Terry, Chris Connor, Frank Wess, Dr. Billy Taylor, Gary Bartz, Esperanza Spalding, Terri-Lyne Carrington, Helen Sung and Dr. Lonnie Smith; Jensen also performed with Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan and British soul singer Corinne Bailey Rae on “Saturday Night Live.”
One of Jensen’s most frequent collaborators is her sister Christine Jensen, a saxophonist, composer and conductor; they have recorded three albums together and also worked in Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, a band that includes the trumpeter’s husband, drummer Jon Wikan, another frequent collaborator. Since 2017, Jensen has performed with ARTEMIS, an all-women jazz collective named after the Greek goddess of hunting that she co-founded with pianist Renee Rosnes; ARTEMIS has released three albums so far on Blue Note Records; and in 2024 DownBeat named ARTEMIS “Jazz Group of the Year” for the second year in a row.
During her remarked, Jensen said, “I moved to Ossining about 14 years ago so we could have a space to create and raise our child, and it’s been the best to live in a place that is so supportive, yet close enough to the city so we can go back and forth to play our gigs and be inspired.” Originally hoping to play the trombone, she ended up as a trumpeter, “and here I am, after many adventures in my life, truly honored to be onstage here and with a community that continues to support me.”
Jensen added, “This is such an evolving music, and what we need is this kind of support and recognition that reminds us that people out there are really connected to this message of Black American music. That’s why I’m here—because I heard louis Armstrong when I was a kid and thought, ‘I don’t know what that is, but I feel it!’ To this day, it’s a language and art form, a human connection of personalities, that accepts everyone.”
Dave Douglas, a world-famous independent jazz artist, is a celebrated trumpeter, composer, and educator, whose distinguished career spans over 70 albums of original music and more than 500 published works. After discovering the trumpet at age nine, he began learning to play jazz in high school. He later studied at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, before attending New York University.
Widely regarded as one of the leading trumpet players of his generation, Douglas has played as a leader in many bands he’s assembled over the years. His current ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet, Gifts, Sound Prints, OVERCOME, and If There Are Mountains. Additionally, Douglas often engages in special projects that include big bands, tributes, and multi-trumpet ensembles.
Douglas has written hundreds of compositions for groups ranging from jazz trios to symphony orchestras, receiving fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and creating chamber works commissioned by the Library of Congress. His commissions also include works for the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, German public radio, the Essen Philharmonic and Stanford University. In recognition of his outstanding musical career, Doulgas received the Doris Duke Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland award, and two Grammy nominations.
Eager to share his experience and expertise, Douglas has been committed to educating and uplifting the next generation of Jazz musicians. He served as artistic director of the Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at the Banff Centre, co-founded the Festival of New Trumpet Music and was the artistic director for the Bergamo Jazz Festival. Douglas currently teaches at The New School and is guest director of the Jazz Masters program at Malmo Academy of Music in Sweden.
In 2005, Douglas founded the pioneering independent record label Greenleaf Music to produce and distribute his sheet music and recordings, as well as the music of fellow jazz artists, producing close to 100 releases over the years and a podcast featuring engaging interviews with more than 90 creative artists.
In his remarks, Douglas said, “I’m incredibly grateful to everyone for making this event happen, right in my town and at a library I come to almost every day. It makes me realize that when we support each other, and when we support the arts and humanities, our culture, that’s the thing that in this difficult time can’t be really taken away. To be celebrating jazz, Black American music, and the arts right here in our community is something that is essential.”
Douglas added, “Music, playing the trumpet—it’s a daily grind, like having a job—and to be honored for that is something special. I’m grateful to Ted and Ingrid for the inspiration. Now, I’m going to have to go home and practice.”
