Dave King is an American producer, entrepreneur, and community builder working across documentary film, recorded music, screenwriting, live jazz, and cultural programming. He works between Northwest Florida and New York City. He co-founded SOWAL House, founded the record label MODAL SOWND, and serves as president of the nonprofit SOWAL Foundation. Though he usually calls himself a producer, one principle connects his film, music, venue, and nonprofit work: “Everything I do is centered around building community,” he says.

Producer
After moving to Northwest Florida in 2018, King began collaborating with filmmakers. His first feature-length documentary, The Flight of Jackie Cochran, told the story of the pioneering aviator who grew up in the Florida Panhandle and became the first woman to break the sound barrier. King produced the film, which earned a Suncoast Regional Emmy nomination. Afterward, he wanted to make another film about an unsung local figure. His next subject was already performing regularly at SOWAL House: bassist Steve Gilmore. A three-time Grammy winner, Gilmore spent more than four decades with Phil Woods and also worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Art Blakey, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Tom Waits, and others. 

Friends at the club began filling King in on the scale of Gilmore’s career, and he started talking with the bassist about a film. Those conversations became SIDEMAN: The Legacy of Steve Gilmore, a documentary about Gilmore and the craft of the jazz sideman. “Contrary to popular assumptions, sidemen are not supporting characters,” King later wrote. “They are the quiet architects of jazz.” For the film, he brought Gilmore into Sear Sound in New York with pianist Bill Charlap, drummer Dennis Mackrel, and alto saxophonist Jon Gordon. The four had never played together as a band. Their March 2026 session became the basis of the accompanying SIDEMAN album.

“I did not set out to make a jazz record,” King says. Yet SIDEMAN  led him to launch MODAL SOWND, a vinyl-focused independent label that releases artists’ work and licenses music from its catalog for film. While making the documentary, King heard pianist Les Kurtz perform the unrecorded “Alice’s Harp” at a Harlem parlor show. He learned that Kurtz had not recorded in more than 40 years.

About a week later, King booked Tedesco Studios and recorded him with bassist Curtis Lundy. Those recordings also appear in the film.
King is also writing JAZZMEN, an eight-episode historical-fiction television series set on New York’s 52nd Street in the late 1940s and centered on Miles Davis. Its pilot became a finalist in Cinequest’s 2025–26 30-minute teleplay competition.

Entrepreneur
King was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and sold paintings to help pay his way through college. “I kind of painted my way through a computer science degree,” he says. When enough work sold, he took more classes. When it did not, he took fewer or sat out a semester. He ultimately earned a Bachelor of Science in Technology from Herzing University, then moved to New York. His technology career included positions at Mariner Investment Group and Magnitude Capital. He later moved into management consulting at PwC and UHY, focusing on cybersecurity, data governance, identity and access management, and operational risk. 

In 2018, King left corporate life and moved with his family to South Walton on Florida’s Gulf Coast. His wife opened an optometry practice. King helped run the business while developing ventures of his own. He started SOWAL Bocce Co. that year and describes it as an “entrepreneurial hobby.” By 2026, he estimated that roughly 600 to 700 registered players had participated. Its six-week spring and fall seasons fill within hours. Although King believes the operation could grow substantially, he has resisted turning it into a larger business. 

King returned to visual art as well. In 2022, the SOWAL House exhibition SELECTIONS marked his first public exhibition of original work in more than twenty years. His pieces combined mixed media, found objects, currency, precious metals, and social commentary. He had previously volunteered with Big Apple Greeter in New York. In 2024, he became a licensed New York City sightseeing guide and created The Bleecker Street Art Beat, a self-guided audio tour of the East and West Villages. He researched, wrote, produced, and narrated the tour for VoiceMap.

Community Builder
The bocce league gave King a model for bringing people together. He calls the game “a great equalizer”: people of different ages and athletic abilities can compete together, while its pace and format leaves space for socializing. He began hearing from newcomers who had met close friends through the league. Because the league operated only part of the year, King began looking for a permanent gathering place. In 2021, he and Blake Jones co-founded SOWAL House in Rosemary Beach as a semi-private social club for events, exhibitions, recording, and podcasting. Live music gradually became central. The space evolved into a jazz club. 

At SOWAL House, King watched patrons move from casual listening to asking for playlists, album recommendations, and help building record collections. The club brings New York musicians to Northwest Florida to play with local artists, including younger players learning from veterans such as Gilmore. King favors small rooms and close contact between musicians and audiences. “Restaurants are transparently transactional,” he says. “Jazz clubs are transformative.” Beyond his own venue, he helps local musicians find gigs and welcomes additional clubs rather than treating them as competition. 

King serves as president of the SOWAL Foundation, established in 2023. The nonprofit presents the SOWAL Jazz Festival, quarterly cinema screenings and poetry nights, and a filmmaker-grant program that awards $2,500 each quarter toward a new project. It also produces SIDEMAN. SOWAL House serves as its headquarters.