This concert was under the radar. Of course it would be, with the Oceans Festival on Saturday and so many other headline acts at Buffalo Beach Club, Grace O’Malley’s, and Smitty’s capitalising on the crowds in town for the Oceans Festival on Saturday, with more events on Sunday.
This concert should have had half the town there. It was so very good and uplifting for the human spirit. The performance took place at 3.00pm at C3 Church in Coghill Street. It was the small Whitianga Dixieland Band giving a Sunday afternoon concert. Ironically, behind the performers was a circular piece of art with the word LOVE. It was so very fitting. Their love of music and performing was clear in every musician.
All of the band members were very proficient, and some, like Joshua Mainwaring on acoustic guitar, are professional recording artists in their own right.
Janie and Paul Lee play for events as a keyboard and clarinet duo. Paul Bradley is a superb vocalist on Dixieland numbers such as Hello Dolly, Bill Bailey, and Down By the Riverside. Paul also programmed and operated the drum machine rhythms and played acoustic bass guitar. Trevor Hildreth’s skill and smooth agility on the trombone led many of the pieces with what seemed like effortless improvisation.
Two miracles
There was a two-fold reason for the concert. The first concerns the young trumpeter Yahn Schaeufele.
Yahn is an exchange student from Germany who has been studying at MBAS. He is 16 and will soon return to his family in Germany. By some miracle of communication, Fabian Roberts connected Yahn with the Dixieland Band. The band desperately needed a trumpeter. They had been in recess since Trevor Robinson died unexpectedly in 2024.
Yahn was a proficient trumpet player but had never heard of, or listened to, Dixieland music. However, it did not take long, with the friendship and expert instruction of the band members, for him to become part of the band.
Saying goodbye and thank you to Yahn, and giving him an opportunity to play the songs he had learned, was the first reason for the concert. The second reason is that the band members are hoping for another miracle. Is there a trumpeter out there who could be part of the Whitianga Dixieland Band?
◾️Contact Paul Bradley yeldarb4249@gmail.com
027 341 3002
