Jazz drummer John Pochée to be honoured at 2017 Art Music Awards

Jazz drummer John Pochée OAM will receive the Distinguished Services to Australian Music honour at the 2017 Art Music Awards on Tuesday August 22.

With a self-taught style of leading with his left hand on a right-handed kit, since the late ‘70s he played, recorded and toured internationally with The Last Straw, The Judy Bailey Quartet, The Engine Room, Ten Part Invention and Bernie McGann’s trios and quartets.

He toured Australia and New Zealand with Shirley Bassey as her personal drummer in 1969 and 1970, and was Musical Director for The Four Kinsmen.

He has influenced Australian contemporary jazz by leading and playing with important jazz groups, including The Heads, The Ken James Reunion Band, The Chuck Yates trio, The Peter Boothman Group, and vocalists Joe Lane and Susan Gai Dowling.

His jazz stylings earned him the Australian Jazz Critics Award for drums in 1990 and 1992. He was awarded the Graeme Bell Hall of Fame Career Achievement Award at the Australian Jazz Awards in 2006.

On Australia Day 2014 John Pochée was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.