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Joe Pandur

Music came from my father's side of the family, my uncles played double bass, tamburitzas and guitar. I was introduced to the Guitar at age 9, but I got serious about music at age 12 and started getting more involved with playing and listening to the music. First interest for jazz I developed at age 16 when I heard Chick Corea's "Where have you been before", after I started to listen the old school jazz and my favorite artists became Bill Evans, Miles, Coltrane, Monk and so on; in addition to the best of jazz guitar like Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Burrell, Martino, Scofield, Metheney, Stern etc. My first club gig was at age 18, replacing my jazz guitar teacher in "Grand Slam" club in Zagreb. After the that I began to play regulary at clubs in Zagreb area and neighbornig Slovenia. At that time, 1989 I started playing with dutch tenorist Peter Baastian in quarttet "Colours", it was an afro free jazz band with whom we toured most of Croatia and neighboring countries. At one gig in Celje, slovenian trumpet player David Jarh recommended me to try Graz Jazz school (Hoch Schulle fur Music and Darstellende Kunst). I got onto the train and got accepted between 50 other guitarists. There I had a chance to preform, either on sessions or gigs with some amazing Europian players like: Johannes Anders, Claus Raible, Peter Mihalich, Dusan Novakov etc. At that time I attended a Jazz seminar in Groznjan in 1989. with legendary bassist Reggie Workman, trumpet player Stjepko Gut and pianist Renato Chicco of Jon Hendriks Syndicate. I will always remember Jazz class with Joe Pass in Graz and Zagreb. Before the war there was a pretty active jazz scene in Zagreb so I had chance to meet with many jazz greats like Joe Pass, Danny Richmond, George Adams, Marc Whitman, Mundell Lowe, Phillipe Caterine, Cecil Taylor, Casandra Willson etc. During my studies in Graz I started playing with guitarist Charlie Jurkovich preforming in clubs in Austria and 1st Rijeka Jazz Time Festival, the cooperation never stoped. Recently our duo preformed at Zagreb Guitar Summit, where we played series of concerts with Brasilian guitarists Alegre Correa and Pedro Tagliani, and New York's guitarist Woody Mann. Beetwen 1992-2000 I spent something less than 10 years in Los Angeles and Toronto where I played many gigs with Montreal's pianist Allan Sitar and trumpet player Jake Willkinson. I played numerous sessions at the Rex Hotel in Toronto, the famous "Thusdays at Rex" jam session that Bob Mover and Pat Labarbera established in 70s.

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Catwalk

Compost Records
2004

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