Hawaiian music e-newsletters now archived and accessible

Just figured out how to set up an archive for past e-newsletters for those who read this blog but might not be sure if you'd like to sign up on the email list. Please click on this link to view past e-newsletters and if you have any ideas, suggestions or comments on what you'd like to see, be sure to let me know!

Newsletters contain info on upcoming events covering not only the Hawaiian community but the Redondo Beach and South Bay areas as well. Subscribe to read about new events, stores, restaurants, enter to win cool prizes, try some delicious island recipes...from time to time you can also enjoy interviews with some of Hawaii's top performing and recording artists who appear in various Kala Koa Entertainment events such as Cyril Pahinui, Jeff Peterson, Makana, Jim "Kimo" West, Owana Salazar, Dennis Kamakahi, Bobby Moderow, John Keawe and many more!

Pictured L to R: Jeff Peterson, Torie Brown (our #1 fan!), Steven Espaniola

Big Island Events: Kohala in Concert at Kilauea Volcano

Watch a video of Kohala playing C&K's "Highway In The Sun"

I really like this group - Kohala is a trio of acoustic guitars performing mostly Hawaiian pop hits done in a very tasteful and masterful way with no cheesiness which abounds in this genre of music. Charles Brotman was the producer of the CD "Slack Key Guitar volume 2" which won the first GRAMMY award for Hawaiian music. This CD featured a variety of artists like Jeff Peterson, John Keawe, Sonny Lim (all of whom have appeared in the Southern California Slack Key Festival) among other noteworthy island musicians.

"The beloved Big Island acoustic guitar trio Kohala is slated to play a rare concert at the KMC Theater in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. The Kilauea Volcano performance takes place on Saturday, June 13 at 7:30 p.m. and is sponsored by the Volcano Art Center.

“Kohala’s music--an acoustic blend of contemporary Hawaiian, folk, and jazz--reflects the beauty of the landscape and culture found in the Kohala region on the Big Island, where two of the acoustic guitar trio live,” notes VAC education coordinator Julie Mitchell, who is organizing the concert.

Kohala’s lead guitarist, GRAMMY® Award winning Charles Michael Brotman, is a classical guitarist who began playing contemporary jazz after completing graduate studies in music. Rupert Tripp Jr. and Charlie Recaido grew up in Hawai‘i playing island music on steel string guitars using a finger picking style. The combination of the trio’s diverse musical influences creates their own distinct sound."

The above info was taken from this blog - please visit them for more info.

How I Got Started Playing Slack Key Guitar Part 1

There were many factors that made me want to start playing slack key guitar. Of course, it was something I'd always heard growing up in Hawaii but it was just one of those things you take for granted - I remember Jon Odo playing "Ku'u Home O Kahalu'u" slack key style in the talent show in high school and found that impressive. And around 1990 (I think) I started attending the slack key festival on Oahu when it used to be held at the McCoy Pavilion at Ala Moana Park. Ah, those were the days, just hanging out, eating ono plate lunch with your friends, listening to great music.....

When I entered college and started studying classical guitar techniques, that really opened the door to learning other fingerpicking styles. Went to my professor's recital at Atherton studios and 2 things really stuck with me. She played a Sevillanas with a couple of flamenco dancers - which I loved - and then since she forgot to announce that that was supposed to be the last piece in her program, she did one more: a slack key rendition of "Hawaii Aloha". It was very impressive to me that she would include those styles amongst all the other highbrow classical pieces she performed so beautifully that night. A night that would, sadly, be her last performance before suffering wrist and hand problems.

So at one point she turned me on to playing flamenco guitar accompaniment for flamenco dancers as well as a solo instrument, which I ended up LOVING and was the real reason I moved from Hawaii to California. Then, still in college, my friend asked me if I wanted to play in this talent show thingee at his church that I'd also started attending and I said sure! So that night I did a flamenco piece that I'd been practicing and people loved it. But that night there was also a guy who played a slack key guitar piece which I really liked, though I have no idea what it was. We talked afterwards and as he said man I'd love to learn how you do that, I said the same to him.

So I was really starting to feel it. And then, me and my little flamenco group (with dancers) performed at the Make Music Festival in Honolulu one year in like, 1995 or something, and the next year they invited us to perform on opening night of the festival. That's where I saw John Keawe for the first time. I got there early to the Honolulu Academy of Arts theatre and he was the only one there so I thought he was like, custodial staff or something so I was asking him where the changing rooms and stuff were (had heard his name before but didn't know what he looked like). Not that I was rude to him or anything (I hope). But it was embarrassing when they announced his name to come up on stage to perform and I was like "Eh! Dat's da guy!". He still remembered me almost ten years later when I went up to talk to him after his performance at the Whittier College Aloha Series.

He later told me, when we were hanging out at my Southern California Slack Key Festival that was when he was first getting started on recording and I think he'd just won a Hoku award for his music. Anyway, that night, he played such a beautiful rendition of "Amazing Grace" that inspired me so much that I went home that night, tuned my guitar to open G (just guessed at it) and started trying to figure it out on my own, trying to emulate all the little slack key licks that I'd heard over the years that had, unbeknownst to me, subconsciously seeped into my brain. And now, it's one of my favorite things to play and was planning to play it at this last slack key festival until I painfully ripped off my nail on my middle finger. Probably could have still done it if it had been my ring finger, but the middle finger is too important!

More to come....

2009 Slack Key Festival Highlights Part 2

One of the best parts of the Southern California Slack Key Festival is the reception held the night before the show that I have come to call the Concert Preview Reception. Duke's Restaurant in Malibu has been the perfect setting for this event and Josh and Brittany in catering have been wonderful supporters as well. Yes, it can be a bit of a drive depending on where you're coming from but every attendee would attest to the fact that it is so worth it! I mean, you get great food, drink and the chance to see the festival's artists up close and personal.

The artists are always so warm and full of aloha and they were greeted with the same from all the fans and that's what really makes this kind of event a success. I asked John Keawe's beautiful wife Hope to do the lei greeting as guests arrived and received, to their surprise, a goodie bag provided by Trilogy Spa.

And oh, the food. To keep costs low for the guests (and also for me) and still present a classy event, I worked on the menu with Duke's who also donated some appetizers including some of the most incredible shrimp and poke you'll ever eat. Even my friend who works in Hollywood and is exposed to vast amounts of the best food on a daily basis (her dog gets filet mignon and prime rib!) said dinner and pupus that night was amazing. Her mom was actually wondering if maybe she should have had more shrimp and poke since that was likely going to be dinner because how could it possibly get any better than that? But no, there was huli huli chicken, mahi mahi, Duke's famous hula pie and so much more. Even Primo Beer pitched in drinks, even before they were officially distributing on the mainland, just happy to be a part of the night's festivities!

Last year, Kimo West said it'd be no problem to bring his PA system in case any jammin' were to take place. I left it totally optional for the artists and to do whatever they feel. Well, George Kahumoku Jr got up and took the initiative, and so did Dennis Kamakahi, Owana Salazar, Cyril Pahinui, and they all had such wonderful stories to share. And speaking of wonderful stories, a couple days prior, Jeff Peterson and I had dropped in, unannounced, on Bill Tapia at his house in Orange County (just like how we do it in Hawaii!) and invited him to the reception where he also got up with his ukulele to jam on a few tunes with George, Jeff Peterson, and Kimo, as well as share his as-usual amusing anecdotes from his 90-year musical career (he is now 101!). He'd claimed he'd known Gabby Pahinui so I mainly invited him so he could come meet Gabby's son Cyril.

It's so magical how everything is just go with the flow....to see Makana jammin' with Peter Moon Jr and Lehua (Ledward Kaapana's sister) and Sonny Lim and Bruce Spencer from Maunalua - these artists never get together like this even in Hawaii but that's exactly what happened at this year's reception. Ever seen Cyril get up to do an impromptu hula followed by Bobby Moderow hamming it up? You probably never will again, either!

The photos under the heading Reception at Duke's capture just a fraction of the aloha that filled the room that night but that picture of Makana and Bobby Moderow sharing the mic is itself worth a thousand words.

Stay tuned for info about the Concert Preview Reception for the upcoming Aloha Falsetto Festival in July!

2009 Slack Key Festival Highlights Part 1

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.