Department of Appalachian Studies
Doug Shaffer has nearly 20 years of experience as a musician and educator. Since he moved to San Diego, Doug has been performing alto and tenor saxophone with Uncle Rico; keys, trumpet, and background vocals with Unsteady and Smoke & Mirrors Soundsystem; Trumpet and Guitar with Doah's Daydream; and Piano, Keyboard and Organ With Elizabeth Bowersox and the Kicks. You may also soon hear his juicy tones on a few projects that have yet to be released.
Prior to his move to San Diego in 2014, Doug lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he grew up.
Inspired by Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog, Doug started playing the guitar at age seven. Around the same time, he encountered sheet music for Bach’s Toccata and Fugue on his mother’s piano, and started to pick out the melody. These were just toys to him until he saw the school orchestra concert the next year and suddenly wanted to be like the cool kids playing their saxophones. But when he inquired about joining, the band director showed him a trumpet and invited him to try it.
It stuck. Over the next four years, Doug dedicated his studies to the trumpet, in the hope of attending the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Ultimately, he graduated from there and went on to study jazz trumpet performance at Temple University’s Esther Boyer College of Music & Dance.
Doug currently resides in Tennessee, where he is Adjunct Professor at East Tennessee State University in their internationally renowned Bluegrass/Roots Music program, as an ensemble director and private instructor, as well as continues his live playing with the Tri-Cities Jazz Orchestra as their lead Trumpet player.