Just uploaded the photo slideshow on YouTube of highlights from the 2nd Annual Southern California Slack Key Festival. I tell you, it felt so nice to be able to say "2nd Annual" and I can't wait to be able to look back and say "Wow, it's been 7/10/14/whatever years!" I'm a bit like a kid in a candy store because I get to ask not only friends of mine to be a part of it but also performers I've looked up to for a long time.
For this 2nd annual show I just did, I'm still patting myself on the back (lol) for assembling the trio that opened the show: Jeff Peterson, Jim "Kimo" West and Barry Flanagan of Hapa. As awesome as the first year's show was, I wanted to avoid having solo act after solo act so I elected to go with more groups which, to me, is really how it should be anyway - you know, a bunch of people jamming together enjoying themselves is always infectious and the audience really gets into it! Another good thing about having groups is that I feel it helps highlight solo performers even more, like John Keawe and Makana. To be honest, Barry, Jeff and Kimo were all a little hesitant when I first suggested a trio and I have to admit even I wasn't quite sure how I was going to organize their set - I just knew it was something I wanted to see happen. I did know that I wanted the show to start off with Hapa's Kaopuiki Aloha which I felt really captured the feel of what I was trying to achieve and I was confident that the three of them would really gel with each other so it was really gratifying to see them really having fun up there and saying how they were all mutual admirers of one another. I also secretly relished the thought of them really hashing things out, sweating over it and getting those creative juices flowing which is what I feel is the essence of being a musician. And hey, you never know, sometimes that's how things happen and special projects and recordings often spring from these kinds of encounters. Best of all, none of it came off forced, instead it felt very natural.
What I particularly loved is how the universe can show you that the music is bigger than you. What I mean by that is, as things developed and I came up with a set list that everyone seemed to go for, I really had my heart set on them ending the set with a bluesy jam that Kimo had come up with loosely titled "All Jam Up" (or what I thought would also be good was "405 Blues") which had parts emulating cars honking on a busy L.A. freeway because I thought it was very fitting for the environment but also because I knew all three could really play the blues. Instead, what happened was they all jammed on Jeff Peterson's original tune "Let's Ride!" and for their encore "hana hou" piece they all three played through Kimo's beautiful arrangement of John Lennon's "Imagine" and I couldn't have "imagined" a more beautiful ending to their set.
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