Jazz music and a cult anime series are not two things you’d normally put together. But bassist Marty Quinn has found a place where they do, and the path there led straight from being a lecturer and graduate from the Frost School of Music.
“You have to have the mindset of being open to multiple genres, always having your ears open, and being excited by new sounds,” says Quinn. “That’s something special about Frost.”
Quinn plays bass with the Bebop Bounty Big Band, a 14-piece jazz ensemble drawing eager crowds nationally with Cowboy Bebop LIVE!, a music and multimedia tribute to Cowboy Bebop, a 1998 Japanese neo-noir space Western anime series that became a critical and cult sensation in the United States since its single season first aired here in 2001. Cowboy Bebop now streams on multiple services, including Hulu and Disney +, and gets high ratings on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Crunchyroll. Lovers of the show know every episode, character, and song.
The Bebop Bounty band plays highlights from the score in front of series excerpts on a big screen, capturing the show’s intense, careening energy. Cowboy Bebop LIVE! has been selling out venues of up to 2000 across the country, where ardent fans come dressed as the series’ characters. They join in the music, humming instrumental numbers as loudly as they sing those with lyrics. On social media, enthusiastic fans rave about the concerts, tag the band, and request songs.
The result is a rollicking, interactive – in-person and online - celebration of a fictional world inseparable from its music. The score’s innovative composer, Yoko Kanno, and her urgent, jazzy music are just as revered as Cowboy Bebop creator and director Shinichirō Watanabe.
“The music goes hand in hand with the show as far as how iconic it is,” says Quinn. “Music is one of the things that made the show as popular as it is.”
Quinn, 29, grew up in Chicago playing electric bass in rock bands. He didn’t even start learning to read music until he switched from music business to jazz studies during his sophomore year at Capital University in Ohio. He graduated with an ambition to build his skills and headed to the Frost School to get a degree in jazz pedagogy in 2019.
“I felt very behind because of that late switch,” says Quinn. “It lit a fire under my butt, which still pushes me to work as hard as I can. When I got to the Frost School, my attitude was to stay very humble, ask a lot of questions, be a part of the community, and learn as much as I can.”
Bass professor Charles Bergeron insisted he adds stand-up to electric bass. Quinn’s sight-reading skills grew in jazz ensembles led by assistant professor Stephen Guerra. “Steve would drop ten charts in front of me and say ‘time to read,’” Quinn says. “It’s brutal, but that’s the real world.” He stayed in Miami after graduation and, in 2022, landed a position as a lecturer in the contemporary program.
Frost School connections also led to the Big Bounty Big Band. In the fall of 2023, Quinn played at an album release party for a friend and fellow Frost School alum in Orlando, where he met trombone player Corey Paul, who had recently created the Cowboy Bebop show and band. The two bonded over their love of jazz and anime. Paul began calling Quinn to fill in for their regular bass player, and Quinn has joined the show whenever his Miami schedule allows, playing multiple dates last summer and earlier this month.
Quinn, an in-demand bassist who also plays with Miami-based jazz singer Nicole Henry and indie band Cannibal Kids, says he owes the Cowboy Bebop gig to the musical open-mindedness and the skills he learned at the Frost School. “I have to take fast bebop style solos, then play on rock songs and then beautiful slow ballads,” he says. “It’s like with Japanese culture, mixing things up and ingesting everything. At the Frost School, my first ensemble was avant-garde. I was like, ‘This is crazy,’ but it opened my mind up.”
For Quinn, the thrill is multiplied because he was a teenage fan of Cowboy Bebop, which he and his aspiring musician and artist friends saw as part of the world they aspired to join. “We thought it was really cool,” he says.
Quinn’s past and present came together after a Cowboy Bebop LIVE! Show in Salt Lake City last summer. “Afterwards, a 16-year-old kid came up and said “I’m a bass player, I’m in jazz band, I love this music, I want to learn these songs,” Quinn says. “I pulled him onstage, showed him some of the music, and had him take pictures. He looked at me, and all he could say was, “Man, music is SO cool.” I knew exactly what he meant. When I was 16, I remember this feeling bubbling up inside me and wanting to explode. So I said, “Dude, music is amazing. Practice a lot, and when it’s time to look at schools, I want you to reach out to me at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.”
