Jochen Baldes was born in 1964 in Zürich. Ever since he was 19 he has practiced his trade as a free artist painting and sculpturing. He participated several times in solo- and groupexhibitions. In 1988, Baldes received subsidy from the local authorities in Zürich.

During the same year, Baldes commenced his studies to play saxophone, in which he was guided by Nathanael Su. From 1991 till 1995 he studied at the at the Swiss Jazz School in Bern as a pupil of Andy Scherrer, Joe Haider, Bert Joris and Frank Sikora. He graduated in 1995, and received a degree. He also received workshops for training from Rick Margitza, Ray Anderson, Mark Turner, Cedar Walton, Wynton Marsalis, Billy Higgings and Tom Harrell.

Nationally as well as internationally, Jochen Baldes performed, among others, at jazzfestivals Montreaux, Willisau, Schaffhausen, Terneuzen (Netherlands), Grahamstown (South-Africa), Splashy Fenn (South-Africa). He also toured in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Cuba and South-Africa.

Jochen cooperated in several cd productions, under his own name as well as the names of others. In the jazz and rock scenes he performed on several radio and tv-channels. He helped creating the music for two short movies by pierre mennel, the soundtrack for the picture “Piff Paff Puff” with the band “Jean et les peugeot” for the tv-channel “DRS”. He composed for a movie by movie-maker and photographer Giorgio Wolfensberger and several hearplays for the Swiss radio, “DRS II”. In the meantime, he also acted as a teacher at the “Gymnasium” in Zürich.

Since 1997, Jochen is the bandleader of the group called “Jochen Baldes Subnoder”, which, besides himself, consists of Adrian Frey, Herbie Kopf and Kaspar Rast. Their first CD, “Niniland” (Brambus Records) was released in 1999. In 2000, the band knew a change of personell when Herbie Kopf and Kaspar Rast left the band to be replaced by Christoph Sprenger and Elmar Frey. In 2003, a second cd was released under the name “Osmotic Jazz”, this time at YVP records. In the summer of 2005, the band played at the Bejazz summerfestival in Bern. They were joined by heir new trumpet and hornplayer Michael Gassmann. In january 2006, they recorded “The Moholo Songs”, which was released by Double Moon in february of 2007. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.