jOHN Pochée BIOGRAPHY
This folder contains reviews and articles pertaining to Eric Myers’s biography of the late Australian drummer/bandleader John Pochée, who died in November, 2022, Readers can click on the INDEX button for a list of reviews or articles in this folder.
John Pochée & Bernie McGann
THE LAST STRAW IN AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND 1988: TASTY AUSSIES
by Erik Gerritsen
June, 1988
In June, 1988, The Last Straw performed at the Fifth Southern Comfort Jazz and Blues Festival, over a weekend at the Sheraton, in Auckland, New Zealand. Also appearing were a NZ band Modern Times, and the Australian singer Kerrie Biddell with a trio led the ex-NZ pianist Julian Lee. This review was headed “Tasty Aussies” and the critic Gerritsen considered The Straw as “definitely the high point of the festival so far”…
Bernie McGann
INVENTIVE MUSOS CONVENTION
by Hugh Nolan
Daily Telegraph, July 21, 1988
Klub Kakadu, still packing 'em in on Friday nights with Monica and the Moochers, score another series of "must see" gigs next week with Ten Part Invention, one of our most innovative jazz outfits. Ace alto sax man Bernie McGann will turn up again at the Kakadu —he's one of the Moochers as well as being one-tenth of Invention. But as one of the very few Australian stylists who can be numbered as a world great on his instrument, we should think ourselves honoured to gain yet another chance to hear his stratospheric soloing. Ten Part Invention will be playing a mass of new material, some composed by the band's soprano, tenor sax and flute player Sandy Evans, as well as other numbers by trumpet and flugelhorn player Miroslav Bukovsky and sax man Bob Bertles…
John Pochée
INVENTIVENESS IN TEN PARTS
by Gail Brennan/John Clare
On The Street, July 25, 1988
Like all arts in which men have outnumbered women, jazz has its macho side. Musicians who judge others on their ability to "eat up the changes at any tempo". The equivalent of rock guitar heroes. But there is another stream, inhabited by gentle and often eccentric souls like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonius Monk and Albert Ayler, for whom expression, inspiration and beauty are paramount. This is the stream to which Sandy Evans belongs. It is the stream that has drawn many female musicians to jazz in recent years, and it is the stream from which many of the great innovations rise. Without people like Sandy Evans, many of us would have lost interest in this music long ago…