Although brought up through brass bands, piano lessons, etc, John did not start playing professionally until he was nearly 30 years old and that was playing piano in bars around NZ. He thought he could make money playing jazz (Ha!)
In 1973 he was in Wellington playing Sousaphone with the Valley Stompers and back in Auckland in 1975 he bought a trombone and formed the Brass Gentry which a few years later was to be the first NZ jazz band to be invited to perform at the long-established Australian Jazz Convention. 2000 saw him playing tuba with the late Neil McKenzies' "Dr Jaz", at the prestigious New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. This band was actually invited to play at Preservation Hall - another couple of firsts for NZ Jazz. In his spare time John has written, arranged and compiled five books of Dixieland Standards, a comprehensive chord book, a handbook for the survey and construction of transmission lines and one on the intricacies of learning to play Billiards.
Recently, John has been playing with Tony Parker's New Orleans Joymakers and with the Bays Blues Company (BBC) of Tauranga.
