OBITUARIES
This folder includes obituaries for jazz musicians or persons of significance to the Australian jazz community, written by several contributors. Click on the INDEX box to access a list of obituaries contained in this folder.
OBITUARY: BOB BARNARD AM 1933-2022
by Eric Myers
The Australian, May 26, 2022
Bob Barnard was born into a musical family, a cliché perhaps, but perfectly apt here. He was born in Mentone, a seaside suburb south of Melbourne, his mother a pianist who led the Kath Barnard Band, and his father Jim a saxophonist who played drums and banjo. His brother Len, four years older, played piano and drums. Bob began on trumpet at 11, and played in brass bands, before joining the family band at 14. He did his first recording on his 16th birthday. In the book he and his daughter Loretta Barnard published in 2012, Bob Barnard’s Jazz Scrapbook, he dismissed this early effort. “I was pretty green,” he writes. In his Alfred J Hook Memorial Lecture in 2011, however, he was more positive about an album recorded in 1961 by the Len Barnard band, The Naked Dance…
OBITUARY: JOHN POCHÉE OAM 1940-2022
by Eric Myers
Loudmouth, December, 2022
“John Pochée is a drummer. He has aspirations to no other role. He has shown what it can mean to be a drummer; that there is a certain nobility in this calling. Pochée is in the very vanguard of an elite group of drummers in clearly and forcefully projecting a complete musical concept. Through leading and/or playing in some of our most important ensembles, Pochée has influenced the sound of contemporary Australian music - jazz in particular, but not exclusively jazz - as much as any living musician…” (John Clare)
OBITUARY: JOHN POCHÉE OAM 1940-2022
by John Shand
Sydney Morning Herald, November 22, 2022
If you were lucky enough to know John Pochée , it merely confirmed the qualities palpable in his music-making behind the drums: the warmth of heart, the glint-in-the-eye wit, the raconteur’s instinct, the congeniality and the deep affection for people and for jazz. His drumming had a vibrancy that picked the soloists up as if on a wind, and carried them so their feet didn’t seem to touch the ground until the end. He was at his most vibrant when the music was swinging at velocity, the cymbal work – light, skipping and phenomenally propulsive – studded with drum accents to generate a chattering stream of energetic and effervescent momentum…