Musician – Educator – Activist – Nerd

Josh Quinlain – Sax
Andrew Trim – Guitar
Alejandro Castano – Drums

 

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Unless otherwise noted
The Ben Markley Quartet
Every Sunday from 9-1
El Chapultepec
Denver, CO

Jazz Jam Session
Every Wednesday from 8-11
The Laughing Goat
Boulder, CO

Josh Quinlain and Kells Nollenberger
Friday March 27 7-10
Amante Coffee
Boulder, CO

This is a track from a couple weeks back with my friend Crissy Saalborn.  It is an old Antonin Dvorak song.  I didn’t even know he wrote folk songs.  You know the New World Symphony guy.  I thought this turned out really nice.

 

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I just heard that Oscar Peterson died.  He is one of my favorite musicians of all time and that really makes me sad.  Time to find that Oscar Peterson Christmas album. 

Tags: jazz, music

This seems to have come out of left field.  Victor Goines, the current head of Jazz at Juliard and member of  the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is going to be the new head of Jazz at Northwestern University.  I remember talking to a member of the jazz faculty this summer and he had basically been let go along with the rest of the jazz faculty.  It seemed to be a dark time with jazz ending at Northwestern and the Showcase and Hothouse, two of Chicago’s best known jazz venues closed.  Now Jazz is back at NU and the showcase is suppose to be reopening sometime soon in the Loop somewhere.  It will be really interesting to see what happens with the new program.  Goines is suppose to continue playing and touring with Lincoln Center so we will see what effect it has on the local scene and I have no guess as to what the faculty is going to look like now that he is running the show.
Press Release Nov 27 2007, General News, News, School of Music …

Tags: jazz, education, music

I went to go see my teacher Rob play a solo with the Depaul chamber orchestra and it was really awesome. It is not very often that you get to see a bass do a solo with orchestra. I left the performance with a fire in my belly, and really excited to play the bass.

I was featured in an article by the Chicago Tribune about the investment site Prosper.com. I really like this site and was glad to help. I do not think that the site is for everyone but I have been happy investing in it. My father said that he was truly surprised to see me in the business section of the tribune. “The tempo maybe,” he said, “but I never would have though the business section. link

I just could not resist. I signed up for a car sharing program. I think that this idea is so cool. I know, I know, I already have a car so this is a little silly but I wanted to try it out and see how practical it could be to really not have a car. Owning a car is such an expensive thing but the cost are always in big lumps or hidden in lots of little expenses. Car sharing on the other hand puts the cost on the front and encourages you to drive less to save money. I signed up for a non-profit organization here in chicago called IGO. I am really excited to check it out.

I know, I am a musician so I am suppose to like Myspace. It is so easy to promote your bands and shows. The problem is that it is too easy. It has gotten out of hand with invitations from every band from around the world knocking on my door. Although I love the idea of being able to promote your music, I don’t see that going away with out Myspace and the way it is set up now it is way to easy to manipulate. Bands can market themselves but so can corporations and Pornbots (those hooched up pictures of girls that lead to porn. Myspace is slow and unorganized and on top of all that, it is owned by the king of evil media, Rubbert Murdoch.
With the new addition of third party applications to facebook it really opens the door for useability on this site. You can now send mail using your existing servers, upload your flickr pictures or your blog, which I am doing with this post from bloggger. I invision a future where we have online operating systems where all of your information is kept online and no matter what computer you are on, you will have all of your files, music, email, programs, etc. Facebook is the closest anybody is coming to this and I think it is really cool. So ditch that evil myspace account and come on over, the waters fine.

Dennis Polkow just wrote a really interesting article about the sad state of jazz venues in Chicago. The Jazz Showcase, the areas biggest jazz venue closed its doors at the end of last year after they were not able to renew their lease. Now the HotHouse, Chicago second largest venue that was beginging to pick up the slack with out the Showcase around is closed. Northwestern just canceled their jazz program at the end of the last school year. Jazz is no longer on the radio in chicago with WPEZ 91.5 cutting all of their jazz programing. What is going on? Won’t somebody step up to help this art form from dissolving in a city that arguably is the birth place on modern jazz: a company, a philanthropist, and government, a school, anyone? These are truly dark days for the first truly American art form. I hope for better days ahead.