In the blink of an eye, we're back!

The brave new world is forming around us. Holding any 2025 news until next week, I wanted to begin with things I missed last year...

To start I want to mention the passing in December of the great high school band director, trombonist, and brass teacher Paul Sanders. It's a while since he lived in Tauranga – Paul was most recently teaching in Rotorua – but many will remember him from the good old bad old days, back in the mid-eighties when he led Tauranga Boys' College Big Band to their first win in the National Jazz Festival Youth Band Competition.

Paul was one of those special inspirational teachers, who taught and nurtured students far beyond the demands of just playing an instrument; he was a generous and loyal friend.

Damian Forlong, trombonist in the Rodger Fox Band and leader of Wellington swing kings Shaken Not Stirred, talks of the many professional musicians in their 20s that he plays with who had the benefit of Paul's guidance. And when Damian was just starting “Paul also took in 16-year-old me when I had nowhere else to go. Played me his records, took me to jam sessions, led by example on how to conduct myself, without any lectures.”

Paul Sanders with the Tauranga Boys' College Big Band in 1985.

First Rodger, now Paul. A bad year for music-teaching trombonists. As Damian said: “If you are going to teach music at any level, don't go through the motions, try to be inspirational as Paul Sanders was, because it can make a difference.”

To finish: a surprising amount of recorded music emerged from the Tauranga area last year and, as recording and releasing music increasingly becomes a labour of love that costs rather than makes money for artists, this is worth celebrating.

Paul Sanders and The Dr Jaz Band.

Debuting tracks 

Catching up, days before Christmas came 'Wake', a debut 4-track EP from local fuzz-driven alt-rock bass and drums duo This Is How We Die, and earlier last year I missed a live album from keyboard wiz Akash Duttah: 'The Trio Sessions', recorded in Baycourt's X-Space during the National Jazz Festival, features piano arrangements of popular songs, from The Beatles' 'And I Love Her' to Nirvana's 'Heart-Shaped Box'. Most excellent.

Though surely missing some - my apologies - this week's playlist features exclusively music released in 2024 by Bay musicians. There's jazz and blues, electronica and punk, country and folk, indie and alternative, and many shades of metal...

So hats off to all of them for enriching our lives. For the record, that's The Knids, Marmalade Skies, Sophie-Maude, Shadow & Light, Crooked Finger, We Will Ride Fast, Kokomo, Mike Garner, Joanne Melbourne, Jill Leighton, Frances Ellen, Joseph & Maia, Whiskey Soho, Weston & Paulie, Gary Harvey, Ben Lloyd, Anthony Coulter, Unit 51, Somacaine, Dead Empire, The Darlings, Midwave Breaks, Ravines, John Michaelz, the Black Brothers Band, The Artist Red, Six Two's, Threat.Meet.Protocol, Fiona Cosgrove, Micah, Billy Two, No Reply, Audio Storm, The Afrolites, Club Meds, Georgia Lines, and Liam Ryan. And probably more...

Have a listen!  

Hear Winston's latest Playlist: