John Pochee
Encyclopedia
John Pochée, is a Jazz Drummer and Bandleader.
John Pochée was born in Sydney, Australia in 1940.
His career as a professional musician began in 1956. He formed The Last Straw in 1974 and also played with the Judy Bailey Quartet from 1974 to 1979. Since the early 1980s he has played, recorded and toured internationally with The Engine Room, Ten Part Invention and Bernie McGann's trios and quartets.
The Last Straw won an ARIA award for Best Australian Jazz Record in 1990 and the Bernie McGann
Trio has won 4 ARIA awards for Best Australian Jazz Record.
John Pochée received the Australian Jazz Critics Award for Drums in 1990 and 1992, was elected to the Monsalvat Jazz Festival Roll of Honour in 1996 and was awarded The Graeme Bell
Hall of Fame Career Achievement Award in 2006. As a drummer, bandleader and organizer he has played a major role in the history of Australian jazz
.
and Horst Liepolt
's "Music is an Open Sky" concerts
The original line up of The Last Straw was Bernie McGann
and Ken James (saxes), John Pochée (drums and leader), Dave Levy (piano), and Jack Thorncraft (bass). Along with original material from Bernie McGann, Dave Levy and Ken James their repertoire also included pieces written by Thelonious Monk
and Charles Mingus
. When Dave Levy left the Straw in 1975 the piano chair was taken over by Tony Esterman, and the band's lineup generally remained intact for the ensuing years, the only personnel change being in the bass chair with Ron Philpott and then Lloyd Swanton
taking over from Thorncraft in the 1980s. Apart from a three year break in the late seventies the Straw continued to play until 1999, a 25 year run as yet unequalled by any other contemporary Australian jazz group.
In 1987 The Last Straw recorded an album that won them an ARIA award for Best Australian Jazz Record (1990). They did three overseas tours, New Zealand (1988), Russia for the Australia Council for the Arts (1990) and the Montreal Jazz Festival (1989). In 1990 The Last Straw won First Prize for Best Band at the Leningrad International Jazz Festival.
Pochée's musical relationship with saxophonist Bernie McGann started in the early days of the Mocambo and the El Rocco and since the early 1980s he has been a member of Bernie McGann's trios and quartets, performing at Ronnie Scott
's in London and concerts in Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, India and Malaysia in 1988, Russia in 1990 and Canada in 1993 and 1996. They also toured Europe in 1996 and the USA in 1997. Their recordings have won four Aria Awards for Best Australian Jazz Record and two Mo Awards
for Best Jazz Group. In 2003 they expanded to a quartet with the addition of trumpet player Warwick Alder, touring Europe and the UK in 2004.
In 1986 he formed the ten-piece band Ten Part Invention, which was committed to performing exclusively the works of Australian composers. Over the years this band has recorded four albums and has performed at most major Australian jazz venues and festivals including the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz
and performances on national ABC television
. This band has received numerous awards: three MO awards (1990, 1996 and 2000), the Australian Music Foundation Award (2000) and an Australian Music Centre Award (2000)., In 1994 they toured South East Asia for five weeks and also the Philippines, China and Taiwan in 1998. In September 2004 John Pochée led Ten Part Invention on a two week tour of the USA after the group were invited to the Chicago Jazz Festival
, where he had performed with the Bernie McGann Trio in 1997.
The original rhythm section of Ten Part Invention was Roger Frampton
(piano) Steve Elphick (bass) and John Pochée (drums) and this trio also achieved considerable success as the stand-alone unit The Engine Room. They toured Russia in 1989, being the first Western band to tour there following Glasnost
, and they played at various jazz venues during the 80s and 90s, sometimes working as a quartet when joined by top Australian jazz musicians such as Dale Barlow
, Warwick Alder and Daryl Pratt and with international artists Lee Konitz
, Steve Lacy
, James Carter
and Vincent Herring
.
John Pochée has also played with many other high profile international jazz musicians including saxophonist Dewey Redman
and pianists Barry Harris
, Andrew Hill
, Kirk Lightsey
and Stan Tracey
.
Over the years he has also worked prolifically as a freelance professional musician. He toured Australia and New Zealand with Shirley Bassey
as her personal drummer in 1969 and 1970, and in the late 1970s and the 1980s was Musical Director for the successful show group The Four Kinsmen making 8 trips to the USA with them, appearing on The Bob Hope Show and performing in Las Vegas. At one time or another he has played with most Sydney jazz musicians, including performances with jazz group The Heads, The Ken James Reunion Band, The Chuck Yates trio, The Peter Boothman
group and with vocalists Joe Lane and Susan Gai Dowling.
In 2007 John Pochée was elected President of the Professional Musician's Club and he continues to work as drummer/bandleader with Ten Part Invention and jazz quintet The Space Cadets, as well as various other engagements as a professional jazz musician.
John Pochée was born in Sydney, Australia in 1940.
His career as a professional musician began in 1956. He formed The Last Straw in 1974 and also played with the Judy Bailey Quartet from 1974 to 1979. Since the early 1980s he has played, recorded and toured internationally with The Engine Room, Ten Part Invention and Bernie McGann's trios and quartets.
The Last Straw won an ARIA award for Best Australian Jazz Record in 1990 and the Bernie McGann
Bernie McGann
Bernie McGann is an Australian jazz alto saxophone player. He began his career in the late 1950s and is still active as a performer, composer and recording artist.- Biography :...
Trio has won 4 ARIA awards for Best Australian Jazz Record.
John Pochée received the Australian Jazz Critics Award for Drums in 1990 and 1992, was elected to the Monsalvat Jazz Festival Roll of Honour in 1996 and was awarded The Graeme Bell
Graeme Bell
Graeme Emerson Bell AO MBE is an Australian Dixieland and classical jazz pianist, composer and band leader...
Hall of Fame Career Achievement Award in 2006. As a drummer, bandleader and organizer he has played a major role in the history of Australian jazz
Australian jazz
Jazz music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz...
.
Biography
Born in Sydney Australia in 1940, John Pochée began his musical career in 1956, playing at the El Rocco and the Mocambo, Sydney's major jazz venues of that time. In the 1960s he worked as a professional musician with various groups in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. In 1974 he formed The Last Straw and also played and recorded with the Judy Bailey Quartet from 1974 to 1979. The 1970s were an exceptional time for jazz in Sydney and these two groups were in big demand, working at most major venues including The Basement, Sydney FestivalSydney Festival
Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most attended annual cultural event running every January since it was first held in 1977. Its program features around 80 events including contemporary and classical music, dance, circus, drama, visual arts and artist talks...
and Horst Liepolt
Horst Liepolt
Horst Liepolt is a jazz producer and artist.In Australia, and later in the United States, he organized numerous successful jazz concerts and festivals and also produced a large number of jazz recordings....
's "Music is an Open Sky" concerts
The original line up of The Last Straw was Bernie McGann
Bernie McGann
Bernie McGann is an Australian jazz alto saxophone player. He began his career in the late 1950s and is still active as a performer, composer and recording artist.- Biography :...
and Ken James (saxes), John Pochée (drums and leader), Dave Levy (piano), and Jack Thorncraft (bass). Along with original material from Bernie McGann, Dave Levy and Ken James their repertoire also included pieces written by Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
and Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
. When Dave Levy left the Straw in 1975 the piano chair was taken over by Tony Esterman, and the band's lineup generally remained intact for the ensuing years, the only personnel change being in the bass chair with Ron Philpott and then Lloyd Swanton
Lloyd Swanton
Lloyd Stuart Swanton is an Australian jazz double bassist/bass guitarist and composer, based in Sydney. Swanton was a member of Dynamic Hepnotics in 1986 and co-founded, jazz trio The Necks in 1987 with Chris Abrahams and Tony Buck....
taking over from Thorncraft in the 1980s. Apart from a three year break in the late seventies the Straw continued to play until 1999, a 25 year run as yet unequalled by any other contemporary Australian jazz group.
In 1987 The Last Straw recorded an album that won them an ARIA award for Best Australian Jazz Record (1990). They did three overseas tours, New Zealand (1988), Russia for the Australia Council for the Arts (1990) and the Montreal Jazz Festival (1989). In 1990 The Last Straw won First Prize for Best Band at the Leningrad International Jazz Festival.
Pochée's musical relationship with saxophonist Bernie McGann started in the early days of the Mocambo and the El Rocco and since the early 1980s he has been a member of Bernie McGann's trios and quartets, performing at Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...
's in London and concerts in Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, India and Malaysia in 1988, Russia in 1990 and Canada in 1993 and 1996. They also toured Europe in 1996 and the USA in 1997. Their recordings have won four Aria Awards for Best Australian Jazz Record and two Mo Awards
Mo Awards
The Mo Awards are long running annual Australian entertainment industry awards. They recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia....
for Best Jazz Group. In 2003 they expanded to a quartet with the addition of trumpet player Warwick Alder, touring Europe and the UK in 2004.
In 1986 he formed the ten-piece band Ten Part Invention, which was committed to performing exclusively the works of Australian composers. Over the years this band has recorded four albums and has performed at most major Australian jazz venues and festivals including the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz
Wangaratta Festival of Jazz
The Wangaratta Festival of Jazz is an annual festival of jazz and blues held in the town of Wangaratta, 2.5 hours from Melbourne in North East Victoria, Australia. It has become the premier jazz event in Australia and is renowned internationally....
and performances on national ABC television
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. This band has received numerous awards: three MO awards (1990, 1996 and 2000), the Australian Music Foundation Award (2000) and an Australian Music Centre Award (2000)., In 1994 they toured South East Asia for five weeks and also the Philippines, China and Taiwan in 1998. In September 2004 John Pochée led Ten Part Invention on a two week tour of the USA after the group were invited to the Chicago Jazz Festival
Chicago Jazz Festival
The Chicago Jazz Festival is a popular and well-known four day free celebration of jazz at Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park in downtown Chicago. It is run by the Jazz Institute of Chicago during Labor Day weekend, integrating both world-famous and local artists...
, where he had performed with the Bernie McGann Trio in 1997.
The original rhythm section of Ten Part Invention was Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz...
(piano) Steve Elphick (bass) and John Pochée (drums) and this trio also achieved considerable success as the stand-alone unit The Engine Room. They toured Russia in 1989, being the first Western band to tour there following Glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
, and they played at various jazz venues during the 80s and 90s, sometimes working as a quartet when joined by top Australian jazz musicians such as Dale Barlow
Dale Barlow
Dale Barlow is an Australian jazz composer, multi-instrumentalist: especially tenor, alto saxophone, soprano saxophonist, baritone saxophone and flute....
, Warwick Alder and Daryl Pratt and with international artists Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...
, Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....
, James Carter
James Carter (musician)
James Carter is an American jazz musician.Carter was born in Detroit, Michigan and learned to play there before moving to New York City. He has been prominent as a performer and recording artist on the jazz scene since the mid-1990s, playing saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet...
and Vincent Herring
Vincent Herring
Vincent Herring is an American jazz hard bop and post-bop saxophonist and flautist.-Biography:Herring's formal musical education began at age 11, when he started playing saxophone in school bands and studying privately at Dean Frederick's School Of Music in Vallejo, California...
.
John Pochée has also played with many other high profile international jazz musicians including saxophonist Dewey Redman
Dewey Redman
Dewey Redman was an American jazz saxophonist, known for performing free jazz as a bandleader, and with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett....
and pianists Barry Harris
Barry Harris
Barry Doyle Harris is an American bebop jazz pianist and educator.-Biography:Harris left Detroit for New York City in 1960...
, Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s...
, Kirk Lightsey
Kirk Lightsey
Kirkland "Kirk" Lightsey is an American jazz pianist.Lightsey had piano instruction from age five and studied piano and clarinet through high school. After service in the Army, Lightsey worked in Detroit and California in the 1960s as an accompanist to singers...
and Stan Tracey
Stan Tracey
Stanley William Tracey CBE is a British jazz pianist and composer, most influenced by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.-Early career:...
.
Over the years he has also worked prolifically as a freelance professional musician. He toured Australia and New Zealand with Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
as her personal drummer in 1969 and 1970, and in the late 1970s and the 1980s was Musical Director for the successful show group The Four Kinsmen making 8 trips to the USA with them, appearing on The Bob Hope Show and performing in Las Vegas. At one time or another he has played with most Sydney jazz musicians, including performances with jazz group The Heads, The Ken James Reunion Band, The Chuck Yates trio, The Peter Boothman
Peter Boothman
Peter Boothman is an Australian jazz guitarist, composer, and educator. Since he started playing in the late 1960s he has worked at most top jazz venues in Sydney including The Basement, Festival of Sydney, Sydney Opera House, Jenny's, The Rocks Push, El Rocco, Wentworth Supper Club, and Horst...
group and with vocalists Joe Lane and Susan Gai Dowling.
In 2007 John Pochée was elected President of the Professional Musician's Club and he continues to work as drummer/bandleader with Ten Part Invention and jazz quintet The Space Cadets, as well as various other engagements as a professional jazz musician.
Discography
- 1967 JAZZ AUSTRALIA 2 tracks with Bernie McGann Quartet (CBS)
- 1974 ONE MOMENT Judy Bailey Quartet (Philips)
- 1976 COLOURS Judy Bailey Quartet (Eureka)
- 1983 JAZZ ACTION SOCIETY SESSIONS 1 track w. Ken James Re-Union Band (MBS-Jazz)
- 1985 JAZZ at the SOUP PLUS 1 track w. Bernie McGann Quartet 1 track w.Peter Boothman Quartet (MBS-Jazz)
- 1986 AT LONG LAST Bernie McGann Trio (International release) (Emanem)
- 1987 KINDRED SPIRITS Bernie McGann Quartet w. Bob Gebert (International release) (Emanem)
- 1988 FOR DUKE, MONK AND BIRD Stan Tracey and Don Weller (UK) (International release) (Emanem)
- 1990 LENINGRAD JAZZ INTERNATIONAL As Co-leader The Engine Room Live at Leningrad Jazz Festival - 1 track(Soviet Union release) (Melodiya)
- 1990 THE LAST STRAW As Leader The Last Straw (ARIA Winner) (Spiral Scratch)
- 1991 TEN PART INVENTION As Leader Ten Part Invention (ARIA Nominated) (ABC)
- 1992 UGLY BEAUTY Bernie McGann Trio (ARIA Winner)(Spiral Scratch)
- 1992 WANGARATTA JAZZ VOLUME 1 1 track w. McGann Trio + Barry Harris 1 track w. Bernie McGann Trio (Suburu)
- 1993 BEYOND EL ROCCO 1 track w. Bernie McGann Trio 1 track w. Bernie McGann Quartet (Vox Aust.)
- 1994 TALL STORIES As Leader Ten Part Invention (Rufus)
- 1995 McGANN x McGANN Bernie McGann Trio + James Greening (ARIA Winner) (Rufus) USA release- (Terra Nova)
- 1995 BODGIE DADA 1 track w. The Last Straw 1 track w. Ten Part Invention (ABC)
- 1996 FULL STEAM AHEAD As co-leader The Engine Room (ARIA Nominated) (ABC)
- 1996 PLAYGROUND Bernie McGann Trio + Sandy Evans (ARIA Winner) (Rufus)
USA release -(Terra Nova) - 1996 THE ARRIVAL Joe 'Bop' Lane. Two live tracks w.McGann,Dale Barlow, Bob Gebert (Spiral Scratch)
- 1997 UGLY BEAUTY Bernie McGann Trio – re-release on new label. (Rufus)
- 1998 RENT PARTY Susan Gai Dowling w. McGann Trio + David Levy (Rufus)
- 1999 THE 1987 QUARTET Bernie McGann Quartet – re-release as CD (KINDRED SPIRITS) (Rufus)
- 2000 BUNDEENA Bernie McGann Trio (ARIA Winner) (Rufus)
- 2000 UNIDENTIFIED SPACES As Leader – Ten Part Invention (Rufus)
- 2002 WHERE'S LOVE GONE Susan Gai Dowling w. Bernie McGann (Newmarket)
- 2002 WANGARATTA LIVE Duet: John Pochee + Elliott Dalgliesh 1 track Bernie McGann Trio - 1 track (Jazz Head)
- 2005 McGANN LIVE AT SIDE ON Bernie McGann Quartet (Rufus)
- 2005 TEN PART INVENTION LIVE AT WANGARATTA As Leader – Ten Part Invention (ABC)
- 2005 BLUES FOR PABLO TOO Bernie McGann Quartet (Rufus)
- 2006 COLOURS Judy Bailey Quartet (re-release as CD) (Birdland)
External links
Resources
Information about recordings of John Pochée can be found at Music Australia, an online service developed by the National Library of AustraliaNational Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...