Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

“There’s a glint to Nock’s playing and a buoyancy in his leadership” (Downbeat USA)

Named Best Australian Jazz Ensemble at the 2015 Bell Awards, Mike Nock’s all-star large ensemble returns to the Foundry616 stage for a night of the exceptional music Mike Nock is renowned for.

Mike Nock’s life in music spans some 60 years from his early years in New Zealand to playing jazz on the world stage. As a pianist, composer, educator and band leader, Mike has made a huge impact on the Australian jazz scene over the past three decades, an outstanding contribution acknowledged by his receipt of the prestigious Don Banks Award.

His imposing international experience includes some 25 years working in the USA alongside many of the world’s top jazz musicians such as: Coleman Hawkins, Yusef Lateef, John Scofield, John Abercrombie and Michael Brecker. Mike Nock also led the 1960’s seminal jazz-rock fusion group “The Fourth Way” which performed on the same bills as rock bands like the Grateful Dead and Santana. He was one of the first jazz musicians to use the new electric keyboard, the Fender Rhodes, which had a huge impact on the way jazz evolved at that time.

Noctet features both established artists and recognisable exceptional younger players – keeping, as John Shand (Sydney Morning Herald) puts it, “an eye to the future as well as the rear-view mirror“, something Mike Nock is renowned for.

Mike Nock, piano/electronics
Tom Avgenicos, trumpet
Brett Hirst, bass
Peter Farrar, alto sax
Karl Laskowski, tenor sax
Alex Hirlian, drums
Carl Morgan, guitar
James Greening, trombone