Matthew Quinn
(June 28, 1958 - May 15, 2007)
Matthew Quinn, a highly regarded jazz pianist from Newport, RI passed
away Tuesday May 15 from an injury sustained in a fall at his home.
Matthew was born June 28, 1958 into a family of musicians residing in
Newport, Rhode Island. He carried on the family tradition by taking
piano lessons at an early age. Matthew studied classical music
throughout his grade school years furthering his education as a
traditional composition major at Berklee College of Music.
Before he graduated from Berklee in 1980, he served as arranger and
director of the prestigious Berklee Jazz Rock Ensemble as well as played
trombone with the Berklee Concert Band and other big band ensembles. In
addition to his training at Berklee, Matthew has since studied
individually with Bob Winter, Ray Santisi, Mac Rebenack, and Dick Hyman.
After graduating, Matthew began performing with a number of established
bands like Blood, Sweat & Tears, Tavares, and Herman's Hermits. Other
on-stage experiences included appearances with Annie Ross, Etta James,
Eric Marienthal, Peter Erskine, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Stuart Hamm, Noel
Stookey, Duke Robillard, Stu Cook, Iron Butterfly and Maxine Sullivan.
During recent years he also helped establish the Summer Jazz Series at
Greenvale Vineyards in Portsmouth.
In October 2002 Matthew married his wife, Kia Soderstrom. A VP of
Finance at MTV Networks in New York, Kia moved to Newport and began
working for Hasbro Inc. to be with her husband. A perfect match, the
couple enjoyed exploring destinations as varied as St. John, China,
Hawaii, Japan, Portugal and Kia's native Finland.
He is survived by his wife Kia Soderstrom Quinn, mother Dorothy Carr
Quinn, father Captain Charles S. Quinn USN Ret., stepmother Nancy Quinn,
son Jonathan Harlow, sister Charlene Quinn Dunn, brothers Charles,
Christopher and Mark Quinn, and many nieces, nephews and cousins.
A memorial service will take place Tuesday, May 22, 3pm at Castle Hill
Inn & Resort in Newport, where Matthew played piano for Sunday brunch.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Berklee School of
Music, 1140 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215 Telephone (617) 266-1400.
Published in The Newport
Daily News, May 16, 2007. Reprinted with permission.
Music community mourns
death of local pop, jazz pianist
By James J. Gillis
Daily News staff
Pianist
Matthew Quinn, a versatile and popular local musician, died Tuesday
afternoon at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence from injuries sustained in
a fall at his Tiverton home. He was 48.
Quinn grew up in Newport
and graduated from Rogers High School and the Berklee College of Music in
Boston. He performed with national acts such as Tavares, Chuck Berry, Tina
Turner and Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, but spent much of his career
playing hometown venues such as the Inn at Castle Hill, the Red Parrott,
Asterisk, Greenvale Vineyards and Sardella’s.
Quinn is survived by his
wife, Kia, a grown son, his parents and four siblings. Arrangements as of
this morning were unavailable.
Quinn annually put together
a band to open the JVC Jazz Festival-Newport at its Friday night party at
the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
“He was equally good at pop
and jazz,” bassist/singer Dick Lupino, a longtime collaborator, said
Tuesday. “I think he was known more as a jazz player, but he was good at
everything. Some guys only play pop and some just play jazz, but he was
comfortable with both. He was a unique musician and a unique and fun person.
This leaves a big hole in our musical community, not to mention a lot of
friendships.”
Steve Rizzo, who owns the
Stable Sounds recording studio in Portsmouth, spent part of the day Tuesday
fielding phone calls from fellow musicians. Rizzo and Quinn briefly played
together as a duo in the 1980s before deciding their friendship worked
better personally than musically.
“He was a best friend,”
Rizzo said. “We were like brothers. We talked twice a week. He’ll be missed
by everyone who knew him. It hasn’t really hit me yet. It’s just so hard for
me to believe.”
Friends and family members
said Quinn tripped and fell down a flight of stairs Friday night heading to
a basement TV room. He never regained consciousness. Quinn was taken to St.
Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Mass., and then transferred to Rhode Island
Hospital’s head trauma intensive care unit, where he died Tuesday about 2:30
p.m.
About five years ago, he
successfully battled cancer, even performing hairless during rounds of
chemotherapy. “The guy beats cancer and then dies from falling down the
stairs,” Rizzo said. “That just isn’t fair.”
Quinn often performed with
players and singers such as Lupino, Jimmy Winters, Tish Adams, Richard
Haddocks, Jeff Fountain and his brother, singer Mark Quinn. He helped put on
an annual Christmas concert, mostly at Kay Chapel and then at Oceancliff,
often in tandem with the late Billy Weston, with whom he played for years.
A good-looking charmer,
Quinn was known as a quick improviser. He would toss in a dose of Thelonious
Monk here, a pinch of Miles Davis there, or even a playful chorus of “Jingle
Bells.”
Kevin Sullivan, who plays
in the Beatles-flavored band Abbey Rhode, remembers when the group played a
post-Christmas show last December in the WADK-AM (1540) radio studios. “Matt
was driving around and heard us,” Sullivan said. “He had his keyboard in the
car. He showed up at the station in a Beatles shirt, set up and joined us. I
think we played ‘Lady Madonna.’”
While he was a serious
musician, Quinn often showed a fun loving side to friends, dropping jokes
and puns, and scribbling impromptu cartoons on napkins. In the early 1970s,
he briefly held a “Guinness Book of World Records” honor for pogo stick
prowess, bouncing on the stick 14,000 times in a row.
“About five months later, a
kid from England broke his record,” his brother, Mark, said. “But it was his
for a while anyway. That’s just one of the fun things about Matthew.”
Local cabaret singer Saucy
Sylvia Mureddu first knew Quinn as a teenage pianist, hanging out in bands
with her stepson Chuck Mureddu. “Matthew had a lot of personality,” she
said. “He was a brilliant — and I mean brilliant — musician. This is a sad,
sad, heartbreaking day.
“He had the respect of his
peers. It’s not easy for pianists to work with singers, to know the right
rhythm and breathing. Dave McKenna has it. And Mike Renzi has it. And
Matthew Quinn definitely had that ability.”
Barb Schloff Arrieta, a
mainstay on the local music scene in the 1980s and early ’90s, used to jam
with Quinn at places such as Barclay’s (now Sardella’s) and the Blue Pelican
Jazz Club. An acoustic singer/songwriter, she said Quinn opened her up to
jazzier sounds, stretching out on Billie Holiday’s “Am I Blue?” and Rickie
Lee Jones’ bopping “Danny’s All-Star Joint.”
“Here I was this
folk-singer type, and he had me singing jazz,” she recalled. “It was a
different experience for me and people who knew me. It was really wild and
fun. I don’t know where that happens around here anymore. I know I had a lot
of fun playing with him.”
Arrieta, now a Middletown
teacher, said she remembers Quinn full of life and cocky confidence. “It was
an act,” she said. “He wasn’t conceited at all. He was very funny on the
outside and serious on the inside.”
Quinn knew full songbooks
of tunes, more than 400 by some estimates. Some nights he would seek
requests, to play “stump the piano player.” Arietta said her father,
visiting from Detroit, baffled him one day at the Inn at Castle Hill on a
song called “Here Lies Love.”
“(Quinn) didn’t like it at
all,” she said with a laugh. “He prided himself on knowing every song ever
written. If he didn’t know it, he’d make it up.”
While many thought of Quinn
as a musician first, Mark Quinn said piano playing was just one aspect of
his brother’s life.
“Matthew was so giving, a
very giving person,” he said. “He was a survivor and he reached out to other
people who were diagnosed with cancer. He truly cared about people. Matthew
was always happy to play at charity events. To be able to do that meant a
lot to him.”
