My Account
Next year marks 140 years since a town band was formed in Warkworth, making it one of the oldest such ensembles in New Zealand. Since then, there have been booms, busts and a gradual evolution in musical style and instruments played, from a traditional brass band for many decades to the present day big band with saxophones, keyboard and guitars. Warkworth’s first brass bandmaster travelled to the town from Auckland once a month by steamship; today’s band manager flies passenger jets around the world – times have certainly changed, but the passion for getting together to play music remains as strong as ever. Sally Marden talked to long-time band stalwarts and life members Ian and Jennifer Ferguson, and current band manager Aaron ‘Buck’ Rodgers to hear about the band’s enduring journey, from the 1800s to the 21st century.
Ian Ferguson: In the early days, when Wilson’s cement works were still running, they would ask anyone looking for work whether they were bandsmen. Anyone who was a good bandsman used to get preference, right up to around 1920.
I joined in 1951 or 1952, when Bill Chessum was leader, he started to get it going again after the war.
We were based in Percy Street then, where the old school used to be. The new school was built at Hill Street and the old school remained. That’s where we practiced until the education board gave us one of the buildings and the Scouts got the other one. The band room was moved to Church Hill in 1956 on a site from Warkworth Town Council, and we’ve been there ever since.
Jennifer Ferguson: I went to school in the old school at Percy Street before it became the bandroom. I joined the band some years later in 1956, when I was still at school, and Mr Sinclair taught me music. In those days there was a waiting list and you had to wait for a vacancy.
I first started off on a cornet, but then got tonsillitis two years later and I hadn’t got the puff for that, so they put me on a horn. There were more than 20 members then; it was a big band in those days.
We used to do Christmas carols on the back of a truck, there were no sides on it or anything like that. Younger members would be the collectors and we drove up and down the streets of Warkworth going to every house. On Christmas Day, we’d go up to the cottage hospital and play carols to the mums and babes. The town was very supportive of the band.
We took part in Christmas parades in Warkworth, Wellsford and Maungaturoto, where we used to have to start at the bottom of that steep hill and walk up into the township. And we did A&P shows in Warkworth, Waitemata and Puhoi, plus NZ brass band competitions – we came third in D Grade once.
Ian: We played one time for one of the old members of the original band, William McElroy, in the 1960s. He was in the first band in 1883 so we went down one afternoon and played at his house. He was the last one left and died not long after that.
Jennifer: When we were down at the Waitemata Show in Waiwera one year in the 1960s, Jack Keys was playing the bass drum and he ran straight into a post. We were all doing the parade and he was at the back and a bass drum is quite high – you don’t have wing mirrors or anything – so everybody else saw it coming and just stepped aside, but he crashed straight into it – but he never missed a beat.
Back in the ’70s or ’80s there used to be exchange students in the band and one was an American lass who reckoned the band room was a bit dull and painted it purple and yellow. It stayed like that a long time.
I organised the band’s centennial in 1983. There was a full weekend of concerts and then we played for about a year after that, but then the band went into recess for 17 years. People had left, gone off to work and so on.
People kept saying to me you should be playing for Anzac Day and Christmas carols. In a weak moment in 2001, six weeks before Anzac Day, I put a piece in the paper and got five people to come and practice the hymns we needed. By the time we played on Anzac Day, we had 12 members and then it took off.
Donna Flack joined the band, and then her husband Alan. They were both in Navy bands and they were brilliant.
Donna got a grant for $50,000 for all new instruments and we re-roofed the building from the sale of old Waitemata Power Board shares that the band had kept for a rainy day. Alan used to write a lot of music for us. To buy a full set of music would cost $1000, so he used to write it for our capabilities. He did hours and hours for us.
We didn’t have the internet like you do nowadays, so we couldn’t find it online, we had to buy our music.
Ross Lynch joined in 2001 and I met his mother – she thanked us for having him in the band because he hadn’t played since he was a lad in New Plymouth. He’s our president and longest serving member now.
I was playing right up until a year ago. It’s looking pretty good now because they’ve got all these young ones coming on and all these saxophones and things.
Ian: And the band room looks incredible. We still help where we can.
Aaron ‘Buck’ Rodgers: I joined the band in 2016, when we moved to Warkworth. I was in Whenuapai, in the Air Force, then left in 2014 and joined Air NZ as a pilot. I’d played at school when I was young, and played for a few years in the Air Force, but I stopped for 15 years.
I didn’t know there was a band here when I arrived, but heard about it, got hold of Alan Flack, and came along. I just wanted to play trumpet again.
At the time, it was a mix of traditional brass and swing – not a style of music I was really into, but I just wanted to play. When Alan and Donna moved away in 2019, a few other people also left, and we only had about 10 to 12 members for a few months. At that point I took over as manager and the first thing we decided was to make a clean cut from the brass band music. We were called Warkworth Brass then, as Alan had slowly changed the band from pure brass to more of a wind band. After they left, we decided it was time to turn it into a big band, we started off on a new journey and it’s been amazing.
We now play a wide variety of music – our oldest member, Larry Cates, is in his 80s, and he likes playing Glenn Miller, but we also have a lot of contemporary big band music and modern pop music. It works well because there’s something for everybody.
We now have 21 playing members and 39 in total with affiliated members, so we’ve gone from 10 to 40. The furthest comes from Kumeu and we have four or five who come up from the North Shore.
The word got out there. Once we decided to change to a big band and we made that known, it kind of snowballed. Brett Cowley, our keyboardist, joined and he filled in any missing parts – he’s a fabulous player, next level, and it boosted our ability and more people started to come, like Jennifer Court, our lead sax player, and Mitchell Houlbrooke, our musical director.
As a big band we have more instruments – keyboard, bass guitar, guitar, saxophone, clarinet – and we have a singer, Jennifer Eirena. This opens up more opportunities for a wider variety of musicians. We even have two sound engineers!
We used 2019 to grow into the new style and later in the year played shows at the Tahi Bar, Warkworth RSA and the Kowhai Festival.
Then, in 2020, there was Covid, so we couldn’t really do anything until last year, when we played the Warkworth Hotel, The Stables and the Tahi Bar, then our final gigs were the ultimate – we went to the Bay of Islands Jazz & Blues Festival. That was a great experience.
It was our first outing overnight away from Warkworth. We took the whole band, partners and kids, and booked out a whole lodge up there. It was the most incredible weekend, with four different gigs at four different venues. We had great feedback and accolades. There would have been 30 bands, including two other big bands, with thousands of people.
Then the day after Bay of Islands, the last lockdown started, so everything stopped again.
But Covid just slowed down our development. It hasn’t deterred us or sent us backwards. Whenever we’ve had those big breaks from playing, our members have come back straight away and got straight back into it. I thought it might put people off or that people would have less enthusiasm, but it was the opposite. Every time we got back together, we picked ourselves up, shook ourselves off and got going again. People came back and said ‘let’s go!’ because of what we’d previously done.
In 2020 and 2021, we started tackling the band room. We pulled cupboards out, got rid of one of the toilets and opened up all the space. We got three grants from Pub Charity, did the hall up, painted it, ripped the carpet up and put in curtains. Then we put in heat pumps and baffling on the ceiling and finally we got a new PA system and instruments.
It’s almost recording studio quality now. We rehearse with the PA, so we can all hear ourselves and play better – it’s like being at a gig.
Warkworth is growing and we fully intend on capturing everyone who wants to join. We would really like a youth big band in the future. We’re poised and set up to grow with the town and we’re going to utilise the band room more and more.
We’ve got lots of young players coming through from schools. We’re planning on starting a scholarship scheme for primary school age kids to start learning to play an instruments at primary school. Lessons are free in high school, but not primary school and it’s not fair on kids who can’t afford music lessons at that age, which is when they need to start.
These are really exciting times. We have new connections with other local bands and venues with great motivation. Warkworth is going to become a really well known music area – events, people, bands. We just need to get through Covid-19 and make it happen.
