David Demsey is a member of the Phil Woods Big Band/Water Gap Jazz Orchestra, and has appeared with such artists as Clark Terry, bassists Milt Hinton and Rufus Reid, pianists Bill Charlap, Mulgrew Miller, James Williams and Jim McNeely, and drummers Dennis Mackrel, John Riley, and Bill Goodwin. He has performed with the Metropolitan Opera since 1997, and with the New York Philharmonic since 1994 including three world tours and an all-Gershwin CD, and did six recordings with the American Saxophone Quartet and the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet. He is a Selmer Clinician and has been a guest artist at over 90 universities and public schools. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Maine; his graduate degrees are from the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. He was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Education Hall of Fame in 2024.
He is Professor of Music and Jazz Studies Coordinator Emeritus at William Paterson University, having retired in 2025 after 33 years of leadership there. He is curator of the William Paterson Living Jazz Archives, housing the collections of Clark Terry, Thad Jones, Michael Brecker, Lee Konitz, Art Farmer, James Williams, Jim McNeely, Don Sebesky, Pepper Adams, and others.
He transcribed and published Thad Jones Anthology: 82 Small Group Jazz Compositions (JazzLines), he was Editorial Assistant for Michael Brecker Practice Notebooks (Sher Music), his “Improvisation and Concepts of Virtuosity” is the final essay in the Oxford Companion to Jazz, and he published John Coltrane Plays “Giant Steps” (Hal Leonard) and two books on composer Alec Wilder. His articles have appeared in Down Beat, Instrumentalist, Jazz Educators Journal, JazzED and Journal of Jazz Studies, and he wrote liner notes for five Verve compact discs.