Last march for brass band veteran
Talented player was also a gifted composer
Te Awamutu Brass farewelled its eldest member last week, following the death of of 96-year-old John Gibbons. He joined Te Awamutu Brass when he moved here in 1999, but had previously played for Takapuna Municipal Band, Auckland Artillery Band and Auckland Watersiders Band (1943-1957), Te Aroha Municipal Band (1958-59) and formed the Te Aroha College Band in 1958.
After a break, he joined Lower Hutt Municipal Band ( now Titan City Brass) from 1976 until 1995 and then he moved north and played variously for Cambridge Municipal Band and Tauranga City Silver before moving to Te Awamutu.
Gibbons was a special player — with so much experience and knowledge — joining the band’s Eb horn and cornet sections.
He was dedicated to the bands he played in and often was awarded the Attendance Cup.
This continued through his 80s and 90s in Te Awamutu where he was present for most playouts and contests and was an active competitor as a soloist at national and regional contests, with many successes. His last national contest was in Hamilton in 2019.
He has also repaired hundreds of instruments for bands around the Waikato, at his own expense. In an interview for his 90th birthday, Gibbons said he got enormous
pleasure from restoring cornets that are 80-100 years old.
Bands described him as a gifted craftsman.
His other gift was writing brass music — especially marches. He was prolific, completing 50 marches for many New Zealand bands, signature pieces that recall the history of their regions or people.
Te Awamutu has several pieces that mark special occasions or events.
Gibbons was working on number 51 at the time of his death.
He was also a pianist who played weekly for residents at the Assisi Home at Matangi, and he played for fellow residents at Rosehill Lifestyle Village where he and his wife Joan lived.
Gibbons liked to “entertain the old people”.
It is the marches that will be John Gibbons’ legacy.
Of note are The Spirit of Le Quesney, written for Cambridge Band to play when they visited their twin town in France for the celebration of the centenary of the liberation of Le Quesney (1918) from the Germans in WWI by New Zealand soldiers, and The Heroes of Passchendaele, which was written as a tribute to all the heroes who took part in the battle at Passchendaele, many of whom gave their lives in this battle.
His first march was written in 1946, titled Home of the Kiwi.
Former music promoter and military music historian Gavin Marriott
says it is the march Hauraki that John Gibbons will be remembered for internationally — and he had a part in its writing.
In 2006, a concert of marches was staged in Te Awamutu by the International Military Music Society entitled The March Kings of USA, UK and NZ – Sousa, Alford and Gibbons.
Then 79-year-old Gibbons also presented the march to the 6th Hauraki Battalion – a territorial army unit for the Waikato/Bay of Plenty — which was specially composed for them.
This was the first unit in New Zealand to have their own march.
At the end of a spellbinding night of music, Gibbons was himself stunned to be presented with a march composed in his honour by Steve
Packer, bandmaster of the Royal New Zealand Navy.
The John Gibbons March was a tribute from the International Military Music Society.
Marriott says Hauraki began two years prior, in 2004 when the Mounted Band of the Household Cavalry undertook a tour of the North Island.
Their bandmaster contacted him to ask for the music of New Zealand Army marches as he wanted to do a medley of them.
It was clear there was no such music, so the bandmaster, who had composed for the Queen, promised to write a march.
Marriott was living in Hauraki at the time and contacted the 6th Battalion and they were delighted.
About the same time he was informed of composer John Gibbons living nearby in Te Awamutu, so he made the trip and, in his own words, “introduced myself to a chap who thumped out several partly written tunes on the piano”.
“I said to myself ‘ That part would make a nice intro, that part would make a nice trio, that part would make a nice chorus’ — and so I ran off with three of his incomplete compositions.”
Using Gibbons’ music, Marriott assembled the march, complete with lyrics with help from Packer and students from Burnside High School.
Hauraki was recorded internationally and played by British bands and the composers — Gibbons and Marriott — were made honorary Haurakis.
In the presence of many of his friends from the New Zealand Brass Band family, John Gibbons was played out by Te Awamutu Brass and one of his own compositions, The Town of Taumarunui.