Jazz Performance as a Model for Team Collaboration

Jeff Gothelf and Jim Kalbach know from extensive experience that great team collaboration is the secret sauce of successful companies. At its core, collaboration comes from the culture of your company and the dynamics of your team.

Jazz performance provides a powerful model for how successful teams collaborate. Much of UX design involves collaborating with others: gathering input from the business, ideating solutions in project teams, and iterating with developers. Great UX design requires practitioners to be not only skilled craftsmen, but also expert facilitators.

Through live music and hands-on activities, this enlightening and entertaining session will provide both inspiration and practical guidance for the shift in mindset needed for successful team collaboration.

About the band

Jeff (keyboards) and Jim (bass) will be joined for today’s workshop by three of Canada’s premiere jazz musicians. That’s right — in addition to everything you’ll learn about effective collaboration, you’ll also hear some fabulous music from a quintet for the ages! It might not be Massey Hall in 1953, but we’re still absurdly excited.

Kelly Jefferson (tenor sax) is a five-time nominee for Saxophonist of the Year by the National Jazz Awards. His Kelly Jefferson Quartet release Next Exit was nominated for a 2011 Juno Award for Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year. Kelly is presently on faculty at The University of Toronto and York University where he teaches saxophone, small ensembles, jazz theory, ear training, and improvisation, with previous teaching positions at Humber College in Toronto and McGill University in Montreal. An active freelance musician, Kelly performs regularly with groups that include the William Carn Quintet, Emilie-Claire Barlow, Time Warp, The Shuffle Demons, Mark McLean’s Playground, The Chris Tarry Group, Manteca, The Carn-Davidson 9, and Barry Romberg’s Random Access.

Ted Quinlan (guitar) is Head of the Guitar Department at Humber College and is regarded as one of the most versatile guitar players in Canada. His musicality and his breadth and depth of skills make him a highly-regarded and in-demand jazz player, session musician, writer, and educator. He’s also a busy sideman and has performed with Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Eddie Harris, Jimmy Smith, Joey DeFrancesco, Maria Schneider, Michael Brecker, Dave Holland, Dave Leibman, Vince Mendoza and Steve Gadd. Yes, you read that list of jazz lumninaries right!

Ted Warren (drums) has a solid reputation as a musical, versatile drummer. He is an active member of Canada’s jazz scene and has been recognized with Jazz Report’s Drummer of the Year award. He teaches at University of Guelph and Mohawk College in their music programs and is a well-regarded clinician and adjudicator. Ted fronts his own quartet, Ted’s Warren Commission, which has released two CDs, First Time Calle and Songs For Doug. He is also member of Broadview, which he co-leads with Rich Brown and Mike Murley. Fluxible veterans may recall that in 2013 Ted was a featured performer in the Festival of Interstitial Music.