My Super-Talented Family Members: Joe "onlyone" Kowalski (Musician/Actor/Filmmaker)

My husband is Joe Kowalski, an imaginative Gen X polymath and among the most talented people I know. I learned the term "polymath" from Hal Sparks.

From Google AI search:

"A polymath is a person with deep expertise across multiple, diverse fields, driven by relentless curiosity and the ability to synthesize knowledge from different domains to foster innovation and creative problem-solving." 

My good friend Diana (she's all over the blog early days as "Lola") once said, "Everybody's supposed to get one gift!" I forget who we were talking about that apparently kept getting in line for more gifts, when gifts were being distributed. It could be absolutely anything or anyone—Diana and I have been friends for over 40 years. Well, Joe has a plethora of gifts. And I have been lucky to have the best seat in the house. Let's see where we are with The Great Kowalski in the year of our Lord 2026,

1. Joe Kowalski the Solo Musician

Joe currently has twenty albums up on Bandcamp, and a whole lot of tunes up on Soundcloud. Joe makes a wide range of albums such as prog, rock, ambient, and experimental. He plays all the instruments, he arranges, he mixes and he masters. You see, Joe has a bespoke studio in our home in Boston, one he's built up over 30 years. It's tricked out. Once I made an attempt to count up all the keyboards, synths, percussion, guitars, bass guitars and other instruments. I lost count. He has an electric sitar. He has a djembe. He has a baby grand piano. Two didjereedoos. The dude has a triangle. I'm telling you, he can play anything.

I have a few favorites to share with you.

For experimental electronic robot rock I really like the album "Breakable." And my favorite track on that one is "Fixable." Listen here:

For a long listen in the dark, I love "The Great Capsule." It's an epic post-rock instrumental combining familiar and fantastical sounds. Listen here:

 

A gentle ambient album for doing yoga, Pilates, or just falling asleep, "In Flight" is inspired by birdsong. It's so pretty! Listen here:

 There's a lot more, but we'd be here all day.

2. Joe Kowalski the Bandmate

Joe has been in a lot of bands since moving to Boston for college, either as the bass player or keyboard/synth player. He's such a genuinely nice fellow, besides being a brilliant musician, that people are always happy to have him around. Joe knows how to collaborate, a critical skill in music projects. The photo is Joe with the very talented Neil Graham. They were the twin genius behind Larry Banilow, and their CD was conceived, written, performed by them, Joe doing the recording, arranging, mixing, and mastering. That was a great band. They may play again. One never knows

3. Joe Kowalski the Teacher

Joe is a natural instructor in bass, keys and synths. When I first met him he was moonlighting teaching Intro to MIDI and Intro to Music Technology at Berklee, where he had majored in Music Synthesis. He has taught kids at the School of Rock (Watertown), and at the Brookline Adult and Community Education, He has done a ton of one-on-one teaching, of all age groups. But I think he likes teaching the kids best. Below is a video of Joe and the School of Rock kids performing a Doors tribute show in 2013. 

 

4. Joe Kowalski the Film and Video Maker

Joe has made tons of music videos for himself and his bands. But Joe is also a filmmaker. The first time I got a sense of Joe's video/film abilities was in 2006 (!). I gifted him on his birthday a Mini HD video camera. It was our first video camera. I went out on an errand, and by the time I got back Joe had shot and edited a short video, He used some of our photographs, two of his action figures, and a little stone gargoyle. Now, there's plenty online about his two movies, Don't Go In The Basement and Perfida: The Diabolical. You can look them up on JoeKowalski.us. But only 218 people have seen Not Quite Alone (In Paris). Here it is:

 5. Joe Kowalski the Cook

During most of our years together, I did the shopping and cooking. Joe would make soup sometimes, or pancakes. But it was mostly me. But when I had my stroke in 2023, he took up those duties. And he knocked it out of the park. We were already eating a low salt diet, but Joe got us on a NO salt diet. We get some salt in the form of the occasional peanuts or baked chips, but now Joe prepares food that's delicious, nutritious, no salt and no sugar. He got the Pritikin cookbook, and looks up recipes online, then he veers off and re-jiggers the recipes to suit us. And he's found time-saving methods. He uses flash-frozen vegetables and ginger, for one thing. And far less meat, making the meals pretty quick. The photo is Joe's Tofu Tacos. He does the tofu crumbled in the oven, seasoned so that it tastes better than beef. Outstanding.

There's more to say about Joe Kowalski, like that he paints, he writes, he reads voraciously, he's hosted our YouTube show, he plays board games (not like Monopoly, I mean these really involved board games).

And a really cool thing he's an expert at is song time signatures. People try to stump him with all these really odd time signatures, but he's never been wrong. Not once.

And he knows a great deal about astronomy.

And baseball. 

And finally, not related, but I must point out how kind and considerate he is, and funny, and how nicely dressed, and how devastatingly handsome he is...but you can read all about that under the tag "Joe" in this blog!🧡