Mike Nock Project

To open their 2009 season SIMA presents a welcome, long awaited appearance by the Mike Nock Project.

With a strong line-up featuring several of Australia’s leading creative musicians including Phil Slater, James Muller, James Greening, Matthew Ottignon and Jeremy Rose along with Mike’s Trio ( bassist Ben Waples / drummer James Waples) this promises to be a night of musical fireworks.

The Project’s debut CD, Meeting Of The Waters, was short-listed for both the 2008 Jazz ARIA and Jagermeister AIR awards.

Reflecting an artist with nothing to prove but much to say, Meeting Of The Waters is another high watermark for Nock. allaboutjazz.com

The music is what we have come to expect from Nock, full of memorable melodies and insistent rhythms. Joyous music, brilliantly performed. – Adrian Jackson, LIMELIGHT April 2008

Pianist/composer Mike Nock has long been one of the top modern jazz keyboardists to emerge from his part of the world, remaining at the forefront of Australasian Jazz and continuing to attract acclaim with critics and audiences alike. His extensive background in a variety of genres with many of the world’s top musicians (from Johnny O’Keefe to Dionne Warwick, Lionel Hampton, Michael Brecker etc) give his live performances a rarely heard breadth and depth. Returning to Australia in 1985 after 25 years in the USA, Mike is now recognised as one of the greats of Australian Jazz. He has returned to his original trio format several times in his lengthy career to record some outstanding examples of the genre.

He began the Mike Nock Project some years ago and released Meeting of the Waters in 2007, featuring mainly his own new compositions, with a contribution from Jackson Harrison and Mike Majkowski. Eight-strong, The Mike Nock Project is inter-generational, playing new music, informed by many musics. Lovely textures abound, with no ‘shrinking violets’, nor any ‘loudmouths’. Each instrumental voice sings out, but always attends to the other seven. This is a killer band with some of Sydney’s hottest jazz musicians on board – so don’t miss the first gig of 2009!

Genius as a composer, arranger and player – working with minimalism, classical, jazz and noiresque soundscapes to show that many colours can be conjured from the keys of a piano. Simon Sweetman, The Dominion Post, NZ