JOHN POCHEE QUINTET

Sat 12 Nov 2005 @ 4:00pm

Admission $12 $15 $18

THIS IS A SOCIETY SATURDAY PERFORMANCE!

John Pochée began his career in Sydney in the mid 50s and has led a colourful and diverse career over the last 50 years. He has performed all over the world with various bands and is a legendary figure in Australian jazz.

As a bandleader, John has accepted several awards including, for Ten Part Invention, three ‘MO’ Awards, (1990, 1996 and 2000) as well as The Australian Music Foundation Award (2000) and an Australian Music Centre Award (2000). He accepted an ARIA Award for The Last Straw’s self titled CD in 1990 and in this same year accepted First Prize for Best Band at the Leningrad International Jazz Festival. John won the Australian Jazz Critics Award for Drums in 1990 and 1992 during the four years it was held (1990 –1994) at the Gold Coast Jazz Festival. He was elected to the Monsalvat Jazz Festival Roll of Honour along with James Morrison in 1996.

Since John Pochée and Bernie McGann met at the Mocambo and the famous El Rocco Jazz Cellar at the beginning of their careers, their long association has produced some of the country’s most important music. Bernie McGann Trio and Quartet recordings, with John Pochée on drums, have won four ARIA Awards over the last decade, and the Trio has won two ‘MO’ Awards for ‘Best Jazz Group’.

He has performed with many international jazz luminaries, his favourites being pianists Barry Harris and Kirk Lightsey and legendary saxophonists Lee Konitz, Dewey Redman and the master of the soprano saxophone, Steve Lacy.

As a player, John has developed a unique style that is immediately recognisable and solidly in the great jazz tradition but that is nevertheless warmly Australian. He has influenced the sound of Australian contemporary jazz by leading and playing in some of our most important groups, including Ten Part Invention, The Last Straw, co-leading The Engine Room (with the late Roger Frampton) as well as playing in Bernie McGann’s Trio and Quartets. Over the last five years he has also led a quintet, The Space Cadets, featuring trumpet great Warwick Alder and some of Sydney’s most outstanding young musicians.

In September 2004, he led Ten Part Invention on a two-week tour of the USA after the group was invited by the Chicago Jazz Festival where he had performed with the Bernie McGann Trio in 1997. Following this tour, he went on to tour Europe and the UK, including the Cork Jazz Festival in Ireland with The Bernie McGann Quartet. Ten Part Invention are now in their twentieth year.

John comes to Perth after the group’s performances and CD launch at the 2005 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues, where he is also performing with the Bernie McGann Quartet and launching a ‘live’ CD. In Perth John Pochée will be accompanied by Mat Jodrell - trumpet, Carl Mackey - saxophone, Graham Wood - piano and Pete Jeavons - bass.

Please tune to RTR FM 92.1 on Saturday 12 November around 10am for an interview with John Pochée by Dick Hurn, presenter of the Saturday Jazz program.

For further information, including a Cadence review of John Pocheé at the Chicago Jazz Festival 2004 plus a Downbeat interview in March 2005, and to view footage of Ten Part Invention’s performance at the John F. Kennedy Center, please visit www.tenpartinvention.com