A Los Angeles native, Don Lucoff began his career in jazz in 1983 as publicist for the Playboy Jazz Festival, and moved to New York in 1984 to join Peter Levinson Communications. In 1985, Lucoff became National Director of Publicity for the jazz division of MCA Records. In 1988, he formed DL Media, a major jazz PR and marketing firm with offices in New York and Philadelphia and has represented such record labels as Blue Note Records, Mosaic, Justin Time, ECM, RCA Victor, Marsalis Music, Mack Avenue, Warner Bros., Verve, Concord Music Group and Columbia Records. DL Media has guided the careers of such esteemed artists as Branford, Wynton and Ellis Marsalis, Joe Lovano, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Abby Lincoln, Max Roach, Dianne Reeves, Al Green, Bruce Hornsby, Derek Trucks, Charles Lloyd, Marian McPartland, and Willie Nelson among others.Lucoff has also been involved in marketing, promotion and audience development for the Detroit International Jazz Festival, Jazz Aspen (Colorado), Barcelona International Jazz Festival, Tuscia in Jazz (Italy), Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Freihofer’s Jazz Festival (Saratoga, NY), Mellon Jazz Festival (Philadelphia), Festival d’Ete (Quebec, Canada) Bell-Atlantic Jazz Festival (New York/ Boston/ Philadelphia/ Washington), BET Jazz Event Productions (Barbados, St. Lucia, Anquilla, Cayman, and Bermuda), Akbank Jazz Festival (Istanbul), and Jazz Marciac (France).For 14 years, he was the Industry Panels and PR Director of the International Association of Jazz Education (IAJE) conference and collaborated with Jazz @ Lincoln Center (JALC) on the Essentially Ellington High School Big Band Competition. Also for JALC, he launched the PR campaign for Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola. As a founding member of the Jazz Alliance International (JAI), and as a NARAS member, Lucoff helped conceive the “Salute to Jazz” initiative sponsored by the Academy, as a pre-Grammy award presentation.Specialties: Public relations, marketing and promotion, audience and artist development. He has continually guided the careers of his staff and interns, many of whom have founded their own firms or work at recording labels including JR Rich (VP of Public Relations, EMI Music) who was the publicist responsible for breaking Norah Jones.