Dave Blinzinger: The Art, The Islands And Making A Living

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Dave Blinzinger has toured Canada, the United States and Europe but, by choice, primarily plays his saxophone at local venues.


“I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. My father had moved up to Cortes Island in the 70s. I lived there from 88 to 1990. At that time, well, there wasn't very much happening on Cortes. You could go up to the Cortes Cafe on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, hang out with the fishermen and that was about it. So I moved to Quadra in 1990, basically to get a job,” he explained.


He has lived on Quadra ever since. 


“I love both islands, but Cortes is special for me because it's the place I went to as an eight year old boy. I lived across from what's now Linnaea Farm in 1976. It was my first visit and it was magic. I just fell in love with the place! I think this place has its grip on me.” 


“The summer of ’76 was my first summer on Cortes, when I was a kid, so I did a composition called ’76.’”
  
Cortes Currents: How and why did you become a musician?


Dave Blinzinger: “I started when I was a teenager, because my father was a saxophone player and so was my uncle. I really admired them. That's what got me into playing the saxophone and into music, really.” 


“My father was a Choir Director and I spent many years in choir. I did vocal jazz. I play a few other instruments. I play hand drums. I play the flute. I play a bit of piano and then I have several different saxophones to choose from, depending  on the situation.”


Cortes Currents: When did you turn professional? 

“I really started in about 1991, with a band called ‘the Valiants.’ They were a large 11 piece rhythm and blues band based out of the Comox Valley.  I stuck with them for about 9 years and played probably two to three times a month, sometimes once a week.” 


“My unspoken goal is to be a working musician. I didn't want to be a pro to try to ‘one up’ anybody. I really just wanted to  play music professionally, eight days a week.”


“My father came from that breed of people. He played in dance bands in the 60s in the United States. In those times, the 40s, 50s, and 60s, you could work as a musician, get picked up by big bands and you could gig for a living, almost like a job. That's what I wanted, to be involved in my music full time.” 


Cortes Currents: What will your second song be? 


Dave Blinzinger: “One that had airplay on Cortes Radio and is on the Quadra Compilation CD. ‘Smoke From A Distant Fire’ is one of my original compositions.” 


“The idea of this song is that you're laying out at night on Cortes Island under the stars, looking up at the stars, looking up at the universe, contemplating the cosmos, which we've all done a lot of. The distant fire is not the forest fires that we have. It's the fire in the sky, meaning the fire from distant galaxies, the light that we see.”