Paul Dyne

Paul Dyne is one of New Zealand’s most experienced and highly regarded jazz musicians and teachers.

As an upright bass player he is a master, setting the highest standard of musicianship and has entertained tens of thousands of New Zealanders over many decades.

For more than 25 years he worked at the New Zealand School of Music (previously Wellington Polytechnic Conservatorium of Music, and Wellington Conservatorium of Music, Massey University) and from 1989 to 2002 he was head of the jazz programme.

Paul had a musical start to life, and by 1960 his band PDs had a regular gig at the Hacienda Cabaret in Timaru. He studied chemistry at Canterbury University and continued to play sax and clarinet for many bands, radio programmes and TV shows and also played the clarinet in the University Orchestra. He left New Zealand in 1970 and taught chemistry in Canada until 1980, playing there with a number of top Canadian musicians and with US jazz legends Sonny Stitt and Pepper Adams.

In 1980 he returned to New Zealand to enrol in a PhD in chemistry, but detoured into music tutoring at the Wellington Polytechnic Conservatorium of Music.

It was in the 80s through the Jazz Foundation that Paul teamed up with drummer Roger Sellers and started a partnership that had them playing together in many band configurations including 23 continuous years at the Lido Cafe. 

Paul’s research and teaching interests included improvisation concepts which he continued to pursue until his retirement as an Associate Professor from the New Zealand School of Music in 2015.

For over 35 years Paul has been a driving force behind jazz music through not only his own jazz bass playing and original compositions, but through his influence on the many talented jazz musicians he has taught within the New Zealand jazz scene.