Doug Beavers — Trombone

By the time hearing John Coltrane's Crescent had him turning his car around — trading in a scholarship to study electrical engineering for a life as a trombonist — Doug Beavers knew his destiny was tied to honoring the charismatic musicality that runs through his blood. And for Doug Beavers that bloodline extends through a lineage of prolific innovators within Afro-Cuban music. With one song, and one huge spin of the wheel, Doug Beavers began a journey that established him as a GRAMMY Award–winning artist, frontman musician, and valued authority within the mosaic of communities he cultivates and collaborates with.

Migrating to New York City, Beavers earned a Master's Degree in Composition from the Manhattan School of Music before being hand-picked by NEA Jazz Master Eddie Palmieri to meticulously transcribe and arrange Palmieri's complete repertoire from his legendary Conjunto La Perfecta band. In-demand as a generational, thrilling Latin trombone talent and prized for his elite composing and arranging skills, Beavers eventually found his way recording and performing with Marc Anthony, Willie Colón, Típica '73, Rubén Blades, Mingus Big Band, Christian McBride, Joe Locke, Dave Liebman, and Paul Simon, all while becoming a prominent member of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra.

Perpetually curious, forever eager to lean into the remarkable diversity of musical influences that inspire him, Beavers' recorded work leverages signature stylistics that explore everything from Latin and contemporary jazz to R&B, soul, pop, and salsa. He has gained international recognition while receiving GRAMMY nominations for his contributions to Eddie Palmieri's 2006 album Listen Here, Spanish Harlem Orchestra's Imagenes Latinas, and their GRAMMY-winning Anniversary album, for which Beavers earned a GRAMMY as producer. His own passionate tribute to legendary salsa and Latin Jazz arrangers, Art of the Arrangement, garnered a GRAMMY nomination in 2018.

Always seeking to innovate, Beavers thrives as a "five-tool" professional, balancing roles as idiosyncratic orchestrator, spirited bandleader, producer and mix engineer, thoughtful educator, and sought-after creative consultant. He currently serves on faculty as Director of the Jazz Ensemble and Audio Recording & Production at The College of New Jersey, and sits on the advisory board of New Jersey's Riverview Jazz organization, which annually produces more than 100 concerts throughout the state. He was a featured trombone artist at the International Trombone Festival in 2025 in Windsor, Canada, and an honored participant in the 2023 Trombonanza festival in Santa Fe, Argentina.

In 2020, Beavers launched his own hybrid record label and production house, Circle 9, which empowers musicians with industry-forward, artist-centric solutions to design and distribute their projects in today's challenging marketplace. Circle 9 currently represents twelve artists and has released several critically acclaimed albums, including vibraphonist Joe Locke's Makram (which peaked at #2 on the Jazzweek radio airplay chart in April 2023) and Cuban cuatrista Kiki Valera's Vacilón Santiaguero, which earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Tropical Latin Album in 2025.

In 2021, Beavers was awarded a Chamber Music America "New Jazz Works" Grant, funded by the Doris Duke Foundation, which laid the foundation for Luna — his most recent work, advancing a daring formula of fusing salsa and Latin jazz with the colorful nuance of rock, classical, R&B, and soul. Doug Beavers is a Buffet Crampon USA artist performing on Antoine Courtois Trombones.