On the Up: Jazz in the Park returns to Hawke’s Bay’s Church Road Winery

A concert name that established Church Road Winery as a concert venue in Hawke’s Bay returns on Saturday after an absence of almost two decades.

Jazz in the Park was a popular event on the green in the late 1990s and early 2000s and was last held in February 2007, headlining English jazz and rhythm and blues musician Georgie Fame.

It returns as a consequence of the collapse of the Timeless Summer Tour, which was to have brought Boy George, Bonnie Tyler, Starship and Little River Band to Church Road, one of three significant concerts cancelled or postponed in Hawke’s Bay earlier in January and February.

Beth Elstone, of Clive-based promoter Littlestone, says when the January booking was scrapped it left Church Road without a headline concert for the 2024-2025 summer, and she embarked on reviving the former staple, which started in the wave of winery concerts heralded by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa’s first Mission Concert nearby in 1993.

Church Road Winery when its last Jazz in the Park concert was held in 2007, featuring English hitmaker Georgie Fame. Jazz in the Park is being revived at Church Road, Taradale, this week. Photo / NZME.

“It has a nostalgia about it,” she said. “Time and time again, when I have been working on shows at the venue, people have shared stories of those unforgettable afternoons, and there’s always a special fondness to their conversation.”

Barrie Browne was winery manager for Montana Wines at the winery in 1993 when the first Jazz in the Park was staged, using the stage erected for a New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Summer Pops tour gig.

He asked if it could stay up an extra week, got the go-ahead and Jazz in the Park was born, with “good support” from late New Zealand big-band guru Rodger Fox.

Several overseas acts were attracted, while keeping to a local theme, Browne said.

While the Jazz in the Park theme disappeared, the green has staged numerous concerts, featuring international acts such as Simply Red, Ronan Keating, Boz Scaggs, Joe Cocker, George Thorogood, Crowded House, Lionel Ritchie, Steely Dan, Steve Winwood, Daryl Hall and John Oates, James Taylor, Jefferson Starship, and Toto, all since 2009.

Headlining the late-season revival is Auckland-based Zimbabwean saxophonist and Afro-Jazz, funk and soul exponent Thabani Gapara, whose journey has seen him share the stage with such acts as Katchafire, Stan Walker, and Troy Kingi.

He’s joined by local talent, including the Hawke’s Bay Jazz Club Big Band, stalwarts of the original Church Road Jazz in the Park, and Margot Pierard, who Elstone notes was on the bill in 2006.

Pierard appears with her new project, Whiskey Green Horse, Jess Atkins and Deep Fried Funk, and Lady Larisa and her band.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues and personalities.