Jazz, jazz, jazz – less than a week to go now and the National Jazz Festival will be starting.
And I think it's time again when all the people in the Bay can be proud that such a national institution has its home here in Tauranga.
It's easy to take for granted. These days everybody here knows that come Easter weekend there will be music in the streets and all over the town and that it is time for the city to party.

That there has never really been any trouble at the jazz festival, despite the obvious amount of drinking that goes on during the day on Saturday and Sunday in particular, shows that – given the right context – people can still drink responsibly, get happily drunk, and go home and sleep it off. It's like weddings: everybody gets trashed and then takes a taxi home. And, like weddings, you trust everyone to respect the event and not cause a fracas.
Perhaps after all these years jazz, once the fear of society and the whipping boy for the ills of increasing immorality - much as rock ‘n' roll was a couple of decades later – has now become too respectable to entice the hoon element. If so, all the better. At the Mission Bay Jazz & Blues Streetfest last month there was a serious overabundance of staggering teenagers, something that has been rising over the last few years and something that the Tauranga festival has so far been mercifully free of.
All credit must go to the organisers for keeping the event so family-focused, especially the daytime components which attract the most people: the Downtown Carnival and the Historic Village.
Actually, I should give it its proper name for the weekend, the TV3 Jazz Village. Last year, the first outing for the village, it was a huge success both on the Sunday and Monday and (weather permitting) the same should be true this year. I just wish someone could find something as attractive to do with it the other 363 days of the year. (Yes, I am aware of the many useful things that happen there, but the place seems to have potential for so much more…)
This year the line-up at the Village would, in itself, make a very respectable jazz festival. In fact, I've been to jazz festivals around the country with less impressive programmes of music than you'll find there on the Sunday and Monday of Easter.
For a start, there are the various bands on the main stage, many of whom could happily attract good audiences if they were playing individual concerts. Torch Songs, Shaken Not Stirred, Kokomo, and the Darcy Perry Band are all names well-known to Tauranga (and national) audiences and all are worth seeing. But there is also a pile of other music tucked in around the Village.
The small church there was one of my favourite venues last year and, again, it has some absolutely stunning music happening. There are a couple of definites on my Must Check Out list.
First are Nigel Gavin and Richard Adams, two founding members of the Nairobi Trio. Virtuoso guitarist Nigel left the band after their first few albums, but the pair (Richard is the violinist) released a duo album together last year which is a thing of immense beauty. I missed them when they played at the Art Gallery a few months back, but by all accounts the show was fantastic. The church only holds about 80 people so get in early if you want to hear the music.
Also in the church is the remarkable and ever-surprising Mike Cooper, a globe-trotting guitarist currently residing somewhere in Europe. Mike does all sorts of things so I have no idea what he will present at the festival. He recorded seminal blues albums in the late 60s, is a great slide guitarist, creates lovely music for old silent South Pacific films and also experiments in avant-garde areas.
What he does will be a surprise, which is totally fitting. The jazz festival is a treasure trove of musical surprises – enjoy it. Be proud it happens here. This is probably the largest annual gathering of New Zealand musicians today. And it's in Tauranga.