Reedman Dick Poccia has played in jazz groups in Western Massachusetts for over 40 years, recording with the Valley Big Band, Jeff Holmes Big Band, the Lowe-Jaffe Repertory Big Band and The Amherst Jazz Orchestra with the Monadnock Chorus. He is currently a member of the Amherst Jazz Orchestra, Jeff Holmes Big Band, The Secondary Messengers, Ask Me Now, Westside Walk Trio and Creacion Latin Big Band and has also has played with the Lowe-Jaffe Big Band, the Eclectic Jazz Quartet, Reflections Chamber Jazz Trio, Moment's Notice, PaxSax Quartet, Never Been to Spain, The Berkshire Jazz Underground and Interplay. He has gigged locally with numerous musicians including baritone sax great Gary Smulyan and many singers including Marion Groves, Ethel, Lee, Ann Maggs, Jill Connolly, Carol Abbe Smith, Vivian Caputo, Frances Rahaim and Barbara Weene.

 

         He has performed in back up bands for the Temptations, Mary Wilson, Martha Reeves, Ronnie Spector, Ernie Watts, Claudio Roditi, Yusef Lateef, John Abercrombie, Steve Turre, Al Cohn, Peter Erskine, Rufus Reid, John Fedchock, Steve Davis, George Garzone, Karrin Allyson, Arturo O'Farrill, Marvin Stamm, Chris Vidala, Jamie Baum, Dave Samuels, Sheila Jordan, Paul Winter, Amanda Carr and the Ringling Brothers Circus. He has twice toured Russia playing in Moscow and at the White Nights Jazz Festival in St. Petersburg. He has performed at Sculler’s, the El Morocco, Sandy’s, Berklee School of Music, the Philharmonic Jazz Center in St. Petersburg, the Estrada State Theater in Moscow, and DOCKS television program in Lisbon. He has played with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Festival Orchestra with Gunther Schuller at Amherst College, the swing big band The Abletones, The Valley Jazz Divas and the Afro-beat band Fenibo. He was guest soloist with the La Forza Chamber Orchestra in Phoenix in 2013 performing Frank Darmiento's Concerto for Jazz Quintet and Orchestra. 

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     He began studying classical clarinet at the age of 8 with the gift of a metal clarinet from a cousin and instruction from his godmother's son, a high school student.  At age 10 he began lessons with the high school band director in Utica, NY performing Mozart and Brahms sonatas locally and in state competitions. He joined the high school band at age 12.  At 14 he acquired a tenor saxophone that belonged to an uncle and began to play jazz in the high school dance band and with friends.  A self-taught jazz musician, he co-founded the Union College Jazz Workshop with quintet and big band.  After graduation, he ceased performing for 12 years, resuming when two of his science students at Amherst College encouraged him to play with the college jazz ensemble.

 

    A Professor of Biology  and of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Amherst College, he holds a degree in chemistry from Union College (NY), MA and PhD degrees in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley in Zoology.  In addition to his science teaching, he has for many years taught a freshman seminar course called Thinking Through Improvisation.