John
Neudorf

From the drum kit
to the microphone

John Neudorf’s life in music began behind the drums, studying jazz at Mohawk College in Hamilton — until vocal instructor Rosemary Burns heard something in him that a drum kit couldn’t say. He went on to study with the legendary Mark Murphy, Down Beat magazine’s Jazz Vocalist of the Year — and thirty years later, he’s still singing like a man with something to say.

His first stage was the blues: fronting bands alongside Mel Brown, sharing stages with Matt “Guitar” Murphy of Blues Brothers fame. That grit never washed out — it’s the foundation under every standard he sings. The jazz came up around it in the Niagara Region and in Toronto’s great rooms, where each set added confidence to technique until the two were indistinguishable.

The records tell it in two chapters. His debut, I Remember, swung from “Creepin’” to “I Remember Clifford” beside an original that already sounded lived-in, “Last Time.” Two decades of living later came Here’s To Life — covers and originals chosen for what they carry, with “Red Clay” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” in steady rotation on JazzFM 91 and a launch party that packed Redstone Winery.

Today John lives in Beamsville, in the heart of Niagara wine country — the resident voice of its wineries and dining rooms, a familiar name on festival bills from Niagara to Ottawa, and a guest of the Hamilton Philharmonic when the songbook calls for full scale. What audiences get is an explosive fusion of scat, warm phrasing and plain joy. The rhythm of the drummer never left — you hear it every time he scats.