Nigel Hirst - Master of the Sax

He’s played in more than 60 bands in 60 years in New Zealand, USA, Solomon Islands and Queenstown where the sultry tones of Nigel Hirst’s saxophone have even spontaneously jammed with back-up guitarists for Joe Cocker and Paul McCartney. He’s performed with Kenny Rogers and toured with Billy T. James.

It’s all in a night’s work for this Kiwi boy from Ohope Beach, who went to a Beatles concert, aged 14, and was hooked.
Now 76, he’s still playing professionally.

Nigel walked barefoot to school and lessons were often on the beach, the teacher explaining geography in the sand. Surfing from age 12, hunting and fishing were big. “We’d sometimes catch 60 fish in a day.”

On one family fishing trip Nigel narrowly escaped alive. Allowed to take the anchored boat for a spin during a family picnic at Whale Island, his brother rowed him out. “I turned the key on and ‘Boom!’ I blasted backwards into the ocean in flames.” They all watched from the beach as the fire hit the petrol tank. “It went up like an atom bomb. I screamed my way back to Whakatane Hospital with Mum, covered in burns.”

At 15 he and his mates took a surfing safari to Spirits Bay (Far North), turning up at the pub, five years underage, the publican unperturbed.

Military training in heavy wool uniforms in summer wasn’t cool, however, while studying Commerce at Auckland Uni Nigel escaped call up for the Vietnam War.

He’d played Beatles hits on guitar at high school parties but at uni in 1969 Nigel started his first band, playing in an Auckland club and college balls, then after working at an Auckland accounting firm he set off on his OE in 1972. While working for a San Francisco trucking firm he enjoyed The Grateful Dead live, hitching into the desert before surfing in California and Mexico, watching a Kiwi mate in the world champs.

To Canada, then London where he worked as an accountant for Rank Xerox, Nigel soaked up “a feast of incredible concerts” like Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd and Carol King. “It was a fantastic era.”

From drumming with the locals in Morocco to being introduced to the silver flute by a girl in a cave on the Greek island of Ios, Nigel savoured the acoustics of beautiful old white, Greek churches where he’d just sit and play. After India and Sri Lanka, it was back to NZ to make bamboo flutes and Moroccan-style drums from clay and goatskin.

At 27 a mate loaned him his soprano saxophone. “I’d put on records and play along. It just hit me, and I found my sound.” Classes at Jazz School in Auckland helped ‘master’ this ‘blaster’ before he played gigs around NZ, an American girlfriend in tow, then living in the US for three years, cycling from San Francisco to Seattle. Nigel worked, and played in a black American soul band, before returning to Raglan, “the best waves in the Southern Hemisphere”, joining the ‘MudSharks’ band with Midge Marsden. His surfer, live off the land lifestyle starred in Gary McCormack’s TV documentary ‘Raglan By the Sea’ – Nigel filmed for a revisit 30 years later.

Queenstown sounded like a good gig so in 1983 he headed south, jamming with bands at Skyline and Albert’s Nightclub that first night, after local taxi driver ‘Cambo’ gave him a few gig tips.

He skied and busked his way through winter, soon invited to play full-time with the Gypsy Mountain Pickers at Eichardt’s. He then formed The Cat and The Rats, and later The Ratz. “This place was heaven. I’d head back to Raglan in the quieter months to surf and record.”

A whirlwind romance began with American wife of 36 years, backpacker Margaret O’Hanlon after they met at a Dolphin Club Jam Night. A smitten Nigel tracked her down on her Australian OE, even sending a letter c/- Sydney Post Office, eventually locating her in Melbourne.

The Masters Blasters with Margaret, and Mark Wilson, sometimes Ned Wepiha, followed, still going strong 33 years on.

The main trio play together this week (6 March) in a retrospective Burt Bacharach Show – their names synonymous with Queenstown’s music scene.

Margaret and Nigel have launched many popular local shows and competitions, most notably Starry Eyed and Songstars. Nigel’s played in the Queenstown Jazz, Ukelele and Funk Orchestras and despite battling off lymphoma in 2018 Nigel was still a professional piano tuner until last year. He also taught music at Wakatipu High School for 20 years.

During lockdown Nigel discovered painting gives him “the same buzz” as music, completing portrait, bird and ocean series, the $1000 proceeds from his first painting all donated to the Cancer Society.

Swimming, biking, paddleboarding, and recreational buddy to blind Mark, Nigel’s also into yoga these days.

His devotion to music has never been about accolades, albums or awards. “My reward has been in the joy of doing projects with other people.”