Ukulele artist adapts instrument to jazz, pop, classical
By Bob Karlovits
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, November 12, 2009
http://www.pittsburghlive.com
Jake Shimabukuro has found his love of jazz has one string attached.
"I don't consider myself a jazz musician," he says of his work in the genre that has steered his music away from the folk music of his heritage. "I just don't have the vocabulary for that."
But that has not stopped him from exploring jazz, pop and even classical music on his ukulele, a skill he will show off Friday in the North Side.
Shimabukuro has taken the small, two-octave ukulele and given it a role in jazz with his lightning-fast speed and a love of music that has allowed him to examine jazz standards as well as music by Bach or The Beatles.
"I think jazz is a music for the moment," he says. "It is a music of spontaneous conversation. That is what I am trying to do."
The evening will be one of string virtuosos. Besides the remarkable dexterity of Shimabukuro, the concert also will feature Stanley Jordan, the guitarist who has made himself famous with his fingering technique. He hammers strings with his fingers almost in the manner of a piano, creating an individual sound and ergonomic approach.
Shimabukuro, 33, will display some of the same individuality with his play, which began when he was 4.
But until he was 18, he was basically playing the folk music of his native Hawaii. That music, he says, can be extremely simple, consisting of two or three chords at the most and moving along in a predictable manner.
While many string players do not like to do that, he can "sit on a string for 32 bars very easily" in a traditional, Hawaiian manner.
But when he was 18 and in a community college in that state, he started sitting in with string players who were interested in exploring chords and other ways of playing. That led him to the jazz that often was part of that.
He started hanging around with jazz players at a club in Hawaii, and his dexterity began to draw acclaim. That led him to tours with stars such as Jimmy Buffett and Bela Fleck and dates in the continental United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and Europe.
He talks of his work with Fleck as playing a large role in his development. He says it opened his eyes to the John Coltrane-like dedication to practice and musical examination Fleck shows.
"That was a true inspiration to me," he says.
