I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but I've been able to determine that the JMS appender doesn't work under certain circumstances due to some interaction with commons logging.

Here is my maven POM:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>foo.bar</groupId>
<artifactId>testbed</artifactId>
<name>Testbed</name>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<version>0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<source>1.5</source>
<target>1.5</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.activemq</groupId>
<artifactId>activemq-core</artifactId>
<version>5.0.0</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
</exclusion>
<exclusion>
<groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-logging-api</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
<version>1.4.3</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>jcl104-over-slf4j</artifactId>
<version>1.4.3</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
<artifactId>logback-core</artifactId>
<version>0.9.9</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
<artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
<version>0.9.9</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>

Here is my logback config:

<configuration debug="true">

<appender name="STDOUT"
class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
<layout class="ch.qos.logback.classic.PatternLayout">
<Pattern>
%d

{HH:mm:ss.SSS}

[%thread] %-5level %logger

{36}

- %msg%n
</Pattern>
</layout>
</appender>

<!--
<appender name="QUEUE"
class="ch.qos.logback.classic.net.JMSQueueAppender">
<InitialContextFactoryName>
org.apache.activemq.jndi.ActiveMQInitialContextFactory
</InitialContextFactoryName>
<ProviderURL>tcp://localhost:61616</ProviderURL>
<QueueConnectionFactoryBindingName>
ConnectionFactory
</QueueConnectionFactoryBindingName>
<QueueBindingName>dynamicQueues/queue.foo.logger</QueueBindingName>
</appender>

<logger name="foo.bar.testbed">
<level value="DEBUG" />
<appender-ref ref="QUEUE" />
</logger>
-->
<root>
<level value="TRACE" />
<appender-ref ref="STDOUT" />
</root>

</configuration>

Uncommenting the QUEUE appender results in the following stack trace:

Failed to instantiate [ch.qos.logback.classic.LoggerContext]
Reported exception:
java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
at org.apache.activemq.ActiveMQConnectionFactory.<init>(ActiveMQConnectionFactory.java:88)
at org.apache.activemq.ActiveMQConnectionFactory.<init>(ActiveMQConnectionFactory.java:121)
at org.apache.activemq.ActiveMQConnectionFactory.<init>(ActiveMQConnectionFactory.java:117)
at org.apache.activemq.jndi.ActiveMQInitialContextFactory.createConnectionFactory(ActiveMQInitialContextFactory.java:201)
at org.apache.activemq.jndi.ActiveMQInitialContextFactory.createConnectionFactory(ActiveMQInitialContextFactory.java:140)
at org.apache.activemq.jndi.ActiveMQInitialContextFactory.getInitialContext(ActiveMQInitialContextFactory.java:65)
at javax.naming.spi.NamingManager.getInitialContext(NamingManager.java:667)
at javax.naming.InitialContext.getDefaultInitCtx(InitialContext.java:247)
at javax.naming.InitialContext.init(InitialContext.java:223)
at javax.naming.InitialContext.<init>(InitialContext.java:197)
at ch.qos.logback.core.net.JMSAppenderBase.buildJNDIContext(JMSAppenderBase.java:49)
at ch.qos.logback.classic.net.JMSQueueAppender.start(JMSQueueAppender.java:89)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.action.AppenderAction.end(AppenderAction.java:89)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.spi.Interpreter.callEndAction(Interpreter.java:310)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.spi.Interpreter.endElement(Interpreter.java:173)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.spi.Interpreter.endElement(Interpreter.java:154)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.spi.EventPlayer.play(EventPlayer.java:48)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.spi.Interpreter.play(Interpreter.java:336)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.GenericConfigurator.doConfigure(GenericConfigurator.java:96)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.GenericConfigurator.doConfigure(GenericConfigurator.java:74)
at ch.qos.logback.core.joran.GenericConfigurator.doConfigure(GenericConfigurator.java:38)
at ch.qos.logback.classic.util.ContextInitializer.configureByResource(ContextInitializer.java:23)
at ch.qos.logback.classic.util.ContextInitializer.autoConfig(ContextInitializer.java:34)
at ch.qos.logback.classic.util.ContextInitializer.autoConfig(ContextInitializer.java:43)
at org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder.initialize(StaticLoggerBinder.java:62)
at org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder.<init>(StaticLoggerBinder.java:53)
at org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder.<clinit>(StaticLoggerBinder.java:48)
at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.<clinit>(LoggerFactory.java:60)
at foo.bar.testbed.LoggerTester.main(LoggerTester.java:9)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Logging factory implementation cannot be null. See also http://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#null_LF
at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(LoggerFactory.java:86)
at org.apache.commons.logging.impl.SLF4JLogFactory.getInstance(SLF4JLogFactory.java:155)
at org.apache.commons.logging.impl.SLF4JLogFactory.getInstance(SLF4JLogFactory.java:131)
at org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory.getLog(LogFactory.java:204)
at org.apache.activemq.ActiveMQPrefetchPolicy.<clinit>(ActiveMQPrefetchPolicy.java:30)
... 29 more
Failed to instantiate logger [ch.qos.logback.classic.selector.ContextSelector]
Reported exception:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: contextSelector cannot be null. See also http://logback.qos.ch/codes.html#null_CS
at org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder.getLoggerFactory(StaticLoggerBinder.java:98)
at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.<clinit>(LoggerFactory.java:60)
at foo.bar.testbed.LoggerTester.main(LoggerTester.java:9)
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalStateException: Logging factory implementation cannot be null. See also http://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#null_LF
at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(LoggerFactory.java:101)
at foo.bar.testbed.LoggerTester.main(LoggerTester.java:9)

However, removing the SLF4J commons bridge and un-excluding the commons libs from activemq results in the correct behavior. At this point the commons logging is not running through SLF4J at this point. So this is not desirable.