Quinn Walker is a Portland-based trumpet player, composer, arranger and educator. Quinn Walker strives to bring exciting music that can live within and outside the bounds of the jazz idiom simultaneously.

A bandleader, collaborator with many groups, composer, and educator, Quinn has become an important part of the jazz scene in Portland while receiving his Bachelor’s degree in jazz studies from Portland State University in 2019, and Eugene while receiving his Masters degree in jazz studies from the University of Oregon in 2022. Walker leads several groups of his own around the PDX area including his quartet the Quinn Walker Group and the bigSMALLband an 8 piece group featuring Quinns writing for small big band + vocalist. Quinn co-leads the Blue Butler Big Band with Paris Butler, the Walker-Barber Group with David Barber, and Garden Trio with David Barber and Xylyn Hathaway. Quinn Released his debut album “The Trail” in the summer of 2024 under the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble Label (PJCE).

Quinn has shared the stage with PDX based groups and musicians like the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble, the Chuck Israels Jazz Orchestra, the Ezra Weiss Sextet, George Colligan, Dan Gaynor, Alan Jones, Charlie Doggett, Jessie Smith, Joe Manis, Steve Owen and Dave Captein; he consistently plays as the trumpeter in local Portland bands/musicians Xylyn Hathaway, David Barber, Conjunto Alegre, Pura Vida, Barrio Metsistzo, and The Krebsic Orkestar.

Quinn has been a featured composer arranger for several projects with the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble and consistently writes for his own groups. While studying at University of Oregon, Quinn was asked to be an arranger for the Grammy award winning drummer and big band leader Ulysses Owens Jr,; Owens performed and arrangements written by Quinn for a concert series at Dizzys Jazz Club in NYC in late 2022. Quinn also works as an arranger in the PDX area, specializing in jazz, big band, pop, and latin styles. In addition Quinn’s big band arrangements have been played by the University if Oregon Jazz ensemble, the Portland State University jazz ensemble, Grant HS, Lake Oswego HS, Prairie HS and Mt. Tabor MS. 

In addition to playing and arranging/composing; Quinn currently works as a jazz educator in the PDX area, he works as the faculty trumpet teacher at Mt. Hood Community College and Clackamas Community College, is the artist in residence at Mount Tabor middle school, the artist in residence at Roosevelt High School, helps with the jazz program at Grant High School, and runs a private trumpet lesson studio.