If you'll excuse me this week, I'll skip what's coming up and pause for a few recollections; one of Tauranga's great 'characters” has left us.

I'm talking about the indefatigable Roly Hammond, organiser of so many things that I wouldn't know where to start if I was preparing some sort of proper obituary.

Oddly enough, when I saw his name in a headline this week my first thought was: 'Oh, I haven't heard from Roly in a while.”

Then I realised that not only had he died, but the reason I hadn't heard from him is probably because he was 92 and didn't get out much anymore.

I guess even someone like Roly had to slow down eventually, though it wasn't noticeable in any of my dealings with him, and he must have been well into his 80s then.

So excuse me for a minute if I indulge in a little reminiscing.

Roly was, as I say, an organiser. He was someone who actually did something about things that came to his attention.

Dr Jaz

A lot of his activity was political, and we never even vaguely saw eye-to-eye on that, but Roly was also a friend of Neil McKenzie, the late Dr Jaz, another tireless Tauranga 'character” who for many years led a Dixie band in town, singing, playing banjo, telling rotten jokes and, more than anything else, being an entertainer.

Sadly Neil died way too young and that's when I met Roly.

He stepped up and organised a Dr Jaz tribute concert, with all proceeds going to Waipuna Hospice. The concert was such a success that Roly did it again the next year, and the next.

I think there were around half-a-dozen of them in all, each more spectacular than the last.

I got to know Roly because he realised I could be quite useful. After all, as I keep pointing out, this column is a wonderful avenue for free publicity.

Roly also quickly realised that I had a little black book of local musicians' contact details. Whenever he needed to reach someone, the phone would ring.

Of course I was happy to help and to write about the concerts. Not only was it a good cause, but the line-ups easily merited it (and I'm still not sure how I could have said 'no” to those phone calls).

To wallow in nostalgia for a minute, here is just one of the bills...

A fine line-up

In 2006 it was the fourth such concert, taking place at the Bureta Park Motor Inn. There was Rob Smith's Bay Blues Company, at the time newly featuring American bass trumpeter Kelvin Roy of Auckland's Blues All Stars; there was the Bureta Park All Stars, the Dave Proud-led collection of veteran musicians drawn from Dr Jaz's band who met to play old favourites each Wednesday at the eponymous venue; there was also Woody Woodhouse and his band.

Add to that singer Marion Arts, who presented the public debut of a new line-up called Magnifique, featuring songs from some of Europe's great jazz divas - Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich et al.

She was joined by Auckland accordioniste Bryan Holden, guitarist Trevor Braunias and a young Oscar Laven on trumpet and bass clarinet, who must have been all of about 15 at the time.

Next up was singer Carol Storey of the band Torch Songs, who performed songs from her solo repertoire with a group of friends (including Liam Ryan on keyboards).

And to cap things off, there was virtuoso trombonist and band-leader Rodger Fox, leading the Tauranga Boys' College Big Band, which had a couple of months earlier scooped the pool at Easter's National Youth Jazz Band Competitions, winning, amongst other things, the New Orleans Best Big Band Trophy and the More FM Best Of Festival Award.

That's a helluva line-up. I'd forgotten quite how good Roly was at persuading people to help out with his good causes. And the ticket price was a mere $10.

RIP Mr Hammond. Good work.