Bio

I was born in Buffalo New York on February the twenty-seventh 1954. I began piano lessons at the age of eight and by the time I was eleven I was playing Beethoven and other assorted classical composers. I also took a keen interest in popular music at an early age. This interest, combined with my more formal training had me playing both the Beatles and Beethoven with equal ease by the sixth grade.

In high school I had lead roles in plays and musicals and began my studies of music theory and composition.

In college – I majored in music theory and composition and paid for a-good-deal of my tuition by obtaining a scholarship (for jazz piano). I also was appointed the “student fellow” of the head of the music department. This position required me to correct music theory homework, grade papers and teach such classes as “Advanced Music Theory.”

(I also might add that I played in a professional top-forty band for three years – between junior college (in Jamestown New York) and my return to school at an accredited four-year college in Arizona.)

After I graduated (with a BA in Music Theory & Composition (with a minor in piano)) – I became involved (as a keyboardist, vocalist and composer/lyricist) in a Band (Rhema) which landed a recording contract with a major label (Curb-MCA) by 1983. This band was also in a movie starring Pia Zadora, Craig Sheffer, Alison LaPlaca and Ruth Gordon. (Also – I studied (albeit informally) under the tutelage of Glen Campbell and Frank Zappa during this period of my career).

After the band (Rhema) disbanded in 1985 I chose to work as a product specialist in several music stores near where I lived in Phoenix Arizona. I also moonlighted in several different top-forty bands during the mid-to-late eighties.

In 1990 I was hired by “Lil Dittys” - a dueling-piano bar in Phoenix Arizona. I played at this bar and one of their other locations (in Gulfport Mississippi) as well as Rum Runners (in Lansing Michigan) and various other nightclubs and casinos in Phoenix, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Michigan through-out the nineties.

For the last decade I have played in about twenty-states, Australia,,Europe as-well-as not-just-a-few island-countries in the Caribbean as a dueling-pianist and as a solo pianist/vocalist/guitarist/drummer.

I also have completed around twentycontracts as a solo pianist/vocalist/guitarist and keyboardist for Royal Caribbean, Princess and Carnival Cruise Lines in the last several years.

Thank you for your consideration,

Crag Jensen (AKA Craig Quiter)

716 720 0875

Crag66@aol.com