Douglas Harper was born in Guyana, South America 1929. He started studying music when he was eight years old, and at the age of fifteen he played both jazz- and dance music.
Douglas emigrated to London where he studied at the Guildhall of Music between 1952 and 1955. Later he was on tour through out Europe with two West Indian jazz groups led by Sammy Walker and Herman Wilson.

He was a freelance pianist, composer/arranger and bandleader in the 60’s in Norway and Sweden before he took up music teaching in Kungsbacka between the years 1970 to 1994. Douglas also taught jazzpiano at the ” Folkuniversitetet” in Göteborg and has produced his own LP’s April Jam and Summer blues, CD’s A Man and his Music, Jazz Compositions, Piano Compositions, Love to my Friends and family, For Sentimental Reasons and Moments of Jazz with Maja Van Hogerlinden. My Life as musician is Douglas Harpers autobiography.