Doug Talley has performed with such jazz luminaries as Jay McShann, Clark Terry, Bob Mintzer, Claude "Fiddler" Williams, Bobby Watson, Karrin Allyson, Byron Stripling, Ignacio Berroa, Randy Brecker, Scott Robinson and Gary Foster. He is a familiar face throughout the Midwest as a jazz performer and educator. Talley has also appeared at the 18th & Vine Festival, the Kansas Jazz and Blues Festival, the Kansas City Spirit Festival, the Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival, Mayport Jazz Festival, and in Las Vegas with The Four Freshman, The Platters and The Diamonds.

Doug Talley is the recipient of the 2010 Kansas Governor's Arts Award and the 2009 Johnson County Library Pinnacle Award for arts in education. Talley is a Selmer saxophone artist and clinician and has served as a clinician with numerous college and high school musicians, including the University of Minnesota, Coe College, Kalamazoo College, Kansas State University, University of Nebraska, University of South Dakota, Central Missouri State, Emporia State and Kansas University, among many others. Talley was a faculty member of the Great Plains Jazz Camp for twelve years, and was featured at the 1996 MENC convention in Kansas City directing the Shawnee Mission (Kansas) Honors Jazz Band. He was a clinician at the 1997 International Association of Jazz Educators conference and a faculty member of the 2003 IAJE Teacher Training Institute.