Alan Douglas Rubenstein[1] (July 20, 1931 – June 7, 2014) was an American record producer from Boston, who worked with Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Lenny Bruce and the Last Poets.
He encouraged musicians to express themselves and push the boundaries, as when he teamed Duke Ellington with Max Roach and Charles Mingus for Money Jungle, which George Wein has described as “one of the greatest piano trio recordings in jazz history."
Douglas produced other memorable releases during his short tenure with UA, including albums by Oliver Nelson, Ken McIntyre, King Pleasure, Herbie Mann, and Betty Carter.
On the much later Voodoo Soup compilation album Douglas is known to have wiped original drum tracks on two songs and replaced them with The Knack's Bruce Gary.
Douglas's work on Hendrix releases was defended by rock journalist and critic John Masouri, who in 2001 called him "one of the last great musical visionaries", and said he had been right to try to improve the original tracks: "wisely he'd also edited out passages where Jimi had toyed with a riff repeatedly, searching for just the right phrase... All things considered, it's highly unlikely that Hendrix would have sanctioned the release of poorly executed material, yet the die was cast, and the producer has been branded a controversial figure ever since.
"[4] However, in interviews,[10] guitarist John McLaughlin has criticized Douglas's handling of his own LP Devotion (1970), as well, closely related to Hendrix's Band of Gypsys sessions.
But Umar Bin Hassan, a member of the Last Poets, said following Douglas's death that "whether you liked him or didn't, you had to admit that he was one of the giants in what he did, which was to put out responsible, intelligent and remarkable music.