John Doheny was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1953, studied clarinet as a child, and played in youth orchestras. Switching to saxophone in his mid-teens, he began his professional career in 1972, backing strippers in cabarets in Vancouver, Canada — six sets a night, six nights a week, an experience he says taught him “what it means to be a professional musician,” above all pacing, stamina, and consistency, skills that have served him ever since.
In 1976, Doheny enrolled in the fledgling Jazz and Commercial Music program at Vancouver Community College, where he met future colleagues as well as his mentor, Juno Award-winning Canadian tenor saxophonist Fraser MacPherson, a major influence. In 1979, he toured and performed with blues guitarist Albert Collins, and later that same year began a five-year stint with “Downtown” Kenny Brown’s band. Over the next decade, he performed and recorded with the Coasters, the Platters, Bobby Curtola, Buddy Knox, the Temptations, Solomon Burke, Michael Bublé, and Doug and the Slugs, among other pop and rhythm-and-blues artists.
In 1991, Doheny returned to university, earning both Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Education degrees from the University of British Columbia. In 2003, he enrolled in the graduate school at Tulane University, where he earned an MA in Musicology, with a concentration in Early New Orleans Jazz. From 2005 to 2011 he taught as Professor of Practice in the Tulane Music Department, developing and writing course curricula and serving as coordinator of Jazz Performance Studies — and leading the Professors of Pleasure, the Tulane faculty quintet. His recordings as leader include One Up, Two Back (2002), John Doheny and The Professors of Pleasure (2007), The Professors of Pleasure, Volume Two (2010), and The Real Cool Killers: Parades and Saints (2010), a largely free-improvised trio session recorded at Tulane in 2009. He now lives in New Orleans, where he performs in styles from traditional to modern jazz, funk, and brass-band — leading the John Doheny Quintet and Trio, the Usual Suspects Brass Band, and the Dwayne Burns New Orleans Band, and playing solo saxophone.
