Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

Raised on the west coast islands of Canada, John Lee has been playing music since the age of five. By the time Lee completed his high school studies, he had received a remarkable amount of attention by professional jazz musicians in Canada and earned an impressive collection of awards, scholarships, and honors from jazz festivals such as Envision Jazz Festival, MusicFest Canada and Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. With the support of the Slaight Family Scholarship, Lee continued his studies at the Berklee College of Music where he pursued a Bachelor of Music in Performance. In addition to his academic training, Lee was mentored by prestigious jazz educators Terri Lyne Carrington, David Santoro, John Clayton, Ralph Peterson Jr., Terell Stafford and Bob Gullotti.

Musically, John Lee is known for his incredible proficiency as a multi-instrumentalist as well as his ability to connect the audience to his music and live charisma. Lee performs in colleges, universities, clubs and concert halls and also leads several of his own groups rooted in the styling of traditional or straight-ahead jazz. Lee has done an extensive amount of performing in cities located in North America including New York City (Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, SOMETHIN’ Jazz Club), Boston (Wally’s Jazz Café, The Beehive), Washington (Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, Hamilton Live), Toronto (The Rex), Vancouver (Cellar Jazz Club), and Victoria (Hermann's Jazz Club). Lee has performed at recognized jazz festivals including TD PEC Jazz Festival, DC Jazz Festival and TD Victoria International Jazz Festival.

John Lee performs regularly with young contemporary jazz artists in addition to having shared the stage with international jazz artists such as Cyrus Chestnut, Terell Stafford, Ingrid Jensen as well as Canadian jazz staples Christine Jensen, Brad Turner, Jodi Proznick and Phil Dwyer.