Popular ‘ukulele soloist Jake Shimabukuro just returned to Hawai‘i Wednesday from a tour of Australia and Japan and is already starting another one. The first stop of his Hawai‘i tour will be at Borders Books, Music & Cafe in Lihu‘e
Popular ‘ukulele soloist Jake Shimabukuro just returned to Hawai‘i Wednesday from a tour of Australia and Japan and is already starting another one.
The first stop of his Hawai‘i tour will be at Borders Books, Music & Cafe in Lihu‘e tomorrow at 1 p.m.
“I’m trying to keep this thing going for as long as I can,” Shimabukuro said. “You know when you’re starting to break into different markets and you’re just taking off, you just got to keep going.”
His music and his latest CD, “Gently Weeps,” has been taking off across the country and internationally for the past six months. Sony BMG Australia recently signed on to distribute his music Down Under.
Shimabukuro grew up playing the ‘ukulele and said he plays around with dynamics to make his music stand out.
“I think everyone has his own style,” he said. “There’s only so much you can do with four strings. But you can basically do what you want with it. I like to think I have a modern, contemporary sound. For me, my big thing is to increase the dynamic range of the instrument. I like to incorporate a lot of dynamics — take it down and bring it back up.”
For “Gently Weeps,” the producers wanted to capture the ambiance of Shimabukuro’s stage show.
“The whole concept behind ‘Gently Weeps’ was to capture the energy of a live show,” Shimabukuro said. “(The producer) said, ‘Don’t worry about blowing out the amps or anything. Just play.’ So I was jumping around and playing, just like I was in a show.”
Shimabukuro is mostly known for his fast-paced playing, but if he had to choose a favorite song on “Gently Weeps,” he said it would have to be “Breathe.”
“That was the most difficult for me to record, because it’s a slower song,” he said. “Having the patience to focus on every note wasn’t easy. It was a complete 180 for me. That was different from anything I’ve ever done.”
His main concept for “Breathe” was to teach himself to respect the silence between the notes.
For the last two years, he and his crew have been constantly touring. This will be the longest he’ll be in Hawai‘i for a while. That’s mostly because aside from working on his music career, he’s training for the Honolulu Marathon.
“It’s been tough. I’ve been trying to train a little bit while I was in Australia, but I’m nowhere up to par right now,” he said. “But I know some people who’ve been training for a long time and the marathons are still hard for them.”
While he still has breath in him, he’ll perform and sign autographs tomorrow. Those who purchase one of Shimabukuro’s CDs or DVDs during his in-store performance receive a free “Hula Girl” promotional CD. Shimabukuro scored the music for “Hula Girl,” showing at the Hawai‘i International Film Festival in Honolulu.
