As relative calm descends again over Tauranga, all I can do is look back at Easter and the National Jazz Festival with awe.

Over the top though it might sound, I'd go as far as saying that this was the best and biggest festival of any sort that Tauranga has ever seen. The last Arts Festival, which transformed The Strand with an inspired photographic exhibition, raised the bar pretty high, but the sight of thousands of people enjoying music along the harbour side as the Jazz Festival train steamed by was something very special.
Before it happened I had a few doubts about the how the massively ambitious expansion of the festival would work out. What do I know?
Ever aspect of the festival that I thought might be risky was not only successful, but was wildly successful. I wasn't convinced that people would pay $60 for a trip round the Bay or a cruise on the harbour. Or that – in these reportedly hard times – people would shell out for the higher-priced concert tickets. What do I know? Ticket sales were so good that they totally eclipsed any previous jazz festival.
I wasn't convinced that people would move from The Strand to the new Jazz Village but, with The Strand still full, there were literally thousands of people at the Village. What do I know?
As far as I'm concerned, Festival Director Arne Hermann and Artistic Director Liam Ryan walk on water.
Liam's choice of acts was perfectly in tune with the audience, a fine mixture of the popular and the high-brow, and Arne, with his vision, experience and contacts, has finally started attracting the sort of national attention for the festival which has been so elusive. This is what the festival has deserved for the past few years but with a media focused on only the 'Main Centres”, Tauranga has been ignored. The gamble of bringing an act as big (and expensive) as the Blind Boys of Alabama paid off. Finally Tauranga is playing on the national stage that it deserves. (The Blind Boys were – need it be said – superb.)
The festival would also now seem to be big enough to absorb ancillary events without being harmed by them. The Wizard and Oz played in Greerton and at the Bureta Park, there was music at the Mount, and No.1 The Strand had its own mini-festival, but the actual Jazz Festival is now big enough for these outside events – almost a fringe festival – to have no adverse effect on ticket sales (the lifeblood of the festival).
Was it a perfect festival? Hell no. But everything that wasn't right I would put in the category of fine tuning. Into this basket I'd throw the thought that there probably wasn't enough music downtown on the Saturday for the huge number of people. The Village on the Sunday was also a bit stretched, with food running out rather early. But that was the first day the Jazz Village had ever opened – a few teething problems were inevitable.
Then there's the thorny question of the Maori Jazz Stage. This raised a few hackles. When I expressed some doubts about the concept before the festival I received correspondence strongly in support of the stage, not all of it polite. During Easter itself a mass email was circulated widely (I even had copies sent to me from friends in Auckland) by a well-known local jazz musician who described himself as 'incensed” by the stage. Many others I spoke to at the festival expressed similar reservations.
Well, here's what I think about the idea now – I don't care.
I saw the stage. It looked fantastic. The music was fantastic, there were hundreds of people, smiling and happy and enjoying the sounds in the sun, and I just thought, who cares? There was a welcoming powhiri there for the Blind Boys and it was a beautiful thing, in the perfect setting.
So, ultimately, does it matter? This is all about people playing music and, as I enjoyed the music on the Maori Jazz Stage, vague philosophical conundrums went right out of my mind and all I could think was 'this is so cool.” That's good enough for me.