Douglas Joel Wieselman (born November 30, 1954) is an American composer and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

musician. He plays primarily clarinet and tenor saxophone, though he occasionally also plays soprano and baritone saxophone.

Early life and education

Wieselman was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. He earned a bachelor's degree in music at

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...

in 1976, where he first played with Wayne Horvitz; he played with Horvitz extensively into the 1990s.

Career

In 1982, Wieselman began working with Robin Holcomb, and played with her again from 1987 to 1996. In the late 1980s he also worked with

Bill Frisell William Richard Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist. He first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader. He went on to work in a variety of contexts, notably as a participant ...

, Guy Klucevsek, and Anthony Coleman. He started his own group, the Kamikaze Ground Crew, in 1983, with Gina Leishman, and also co-founded the New York Composer's Orchestra in 1986. Other credits include work with Karen Mantler, Nels Cline, Ben Perowsky, and others. In addition to his work in jazz, Wieselman has also written music for the performances of the Flying Karamazov Brothers and played as a

session musician A session musician (also known as studio musician or backing musician) is a musician hired to perform in a recording session or a live performance. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a reco ...

for pop and rock acts such as She & Him,

Cibo Matto Cibo Matto (, Italian language, Italian for "crazy food") was an American alternative rock band formed by Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori in New York City in 1994. Their first album, ''Viva! La Woman'' (1996), had lyrics primarily concerned with food. ...

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, Joan As Police Woman, Iron and Wine,

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Althoug ...

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Martha Wainwright Martha Wainwright (born May 8, 1976) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and musician. She has released seven critically-acclaimed studio albums. Wainwright is the daughter of musicians Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and the younger si ...

, Shudder To Think,

Translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

, and others. He was also a lead composer on ''

The Backyardigans ''The Backyardigans'' ( ) is an animated musical children's television series created by Janice Burgess for Nickelodeon. The series was written and recorded at Nickelodeon Animation Studio. It centers on five anthropomorphic animal neighbors ...

'', from which his song " Castaways" became a viral hit on

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

in 2021.

Discography

*''Todos Santos'' with Wayne Horvitz (Sound Aspects Records, 1988) *''Dimly Lit'' ( Tzadik Records, 2003) *''From Water'' (88 Records, 2014) With

Marc Ribot Marc Ribot (; born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer. His work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, Rock music, rock, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notab ...

's Ceramic Dog *'' YRU Still Here?'' (Northern Spy, 2018)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wieselman, Doug American jazz saxophonists American male saxophonists American jazz clarinetists Musicians from Los Angeles Jazz musicians from California American male jazz musicians 1954 births Living people