Got Silver?

--- from my website http://flickr.com/photos/sirqitous

To get some silver yourself, visit me "Rusty" at
http://silversnowball.com/650

Vanessa Van Spall's viola

Pilgrimage of aloha to 'ukulele makers on O'ahu

Recently I was in Honolulu for my first time in almost 5 years. The highlight was visiting KoAloha, and meeting Alan Okami, who made the concert low-G 'ukuleles (in 2003 and 2004) I love and play the most. It was a thrill to meet Papa KoAloha too. A big mahalo to them and to the rest of the Okami family and extended KoAloha 'ohana...I'll be your ambassador in China or wherever!

I didn't get to see my friend Joseph Souza this time, who made my beautiful Kawaonahele 8-string tenor in 2001, but I happened upon a store where his Kanile'a and Nalo ukes are sold, and had fun playing them, as seen above.

p.s. I just discovered a good Honolulu Star-Bulletin article on the Okami family story:
http://starbulletin.com/2005/10/09/travel/tsutsumi.html

In the Blue Balkan mode

I've enjoyed a close working relationship with San Francisco's great jazz pianist Larry Vuckovich, for over 25 years now. Larry emigrated to San Francisco in the 1950s from his native Yugoslavia, where he'd grown up hearing jazz broadcast over Voice of America, and quickly became a fixture on the then-burgeoning jazz scene here.

Vuckovich is a standout at bebop, latin jazz, and Lester Young's late swing-era stylings, and is a masterful accompanist and arranger for straight-ahead jazz vocalists. But perhaps his most distinct specialty is his original music blending the Balkan folk melodies and rhythms from his youth with the improvisational American bebop of his adopted homeland. I was featured, along with jazz vibes immortal Bobby Hutcherson, on Vuckovich's debut album as a leader in the US, the "Blue Balkan" LP in 1981 (which was released on CD with added new material in 2001 as "Blue Balkan; Then & Now"), and I also played on 1983's "City Sounds, Village Voices."

Here are some recent pictures taken in performance with Larry's Blue Balkan Ensemble at Pearl's, located in San Francisco's fabulous North Beach district, on April 16, 2006. In the top photo, Larry can be seen at the piano, in the background. Below, I'm improvising free jazz on the viola, and at bottom, in the Balkan gypsy style on the violin.

I will be what I will be

God's Name YHWH, in whose Image we are created.


John 8:57-58

--courtesy of yhwh.com

My start in Hawaiian music

Between 1984 and 1992 I was based in Honolulu, where I earned a BA and MA in Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii, concentrating on Japanese language and modernization and also the music of Chinese Peking Opera.

Looking back, it seems amazing that I didn't fall hard for Hawaiian music while I was there. But I was pretty busy studying Chinese opera fiddle with a master player from Shanghai, and rehearsing and performing at the U.H., as well as playing in the Javanese gamelan and studying Japanese koto. (OK, OK, I also played viola in the Chamber Orchestra and violin in the Symphony Orchestra!)

I remember being moved, my first Christmas in Honolulu, by hearing two fellow students sing Honolulu City Lights at a party --- and I had never heard the Beamer Brothers' record! I was certainly exposed to some good Hawaiian music right on campus, as I recall seeing Dennis Pavao, Led Ka'apana, The Peter Moon Band (I think with Cyril Pahinui), and the Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau featuring both Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and his brother Skippy. Got serious 'chicken skin' hearing them sing White Sandy Beach that day, I believe in '88.

As soon as I had left the Islands in '92, I knew I'd made a mistake, and I really grieved for a long time. By 2000, I'd been back in California almost as long as I'd been in the Islands to begin with, but still hadn't gotten over my longing for the smell of plumeria and ginger blossoms, the feel of tropical heat cooled by tradewinds, and the sight of azure skies over turquoise seas. My slack-key records including those of my hero, Dennis Kamakahi, gave me some comfort, but I didn't see myself taking up guitar at this late date. I was attracted to the ukulele: sweeter, smaller, cheerful-sounding and easy to play with the thumb or fingers, with no need of a pick. I finally bought one and taught myself in short order to play it, strumming the chords of my favorite songs along with records by Gabby Pahinui, Ray Kane, Aunty Genoa Keawe, The Sunday Manoa and of course Eddie Kamae and the Sons of Hawai'i, featuring young Dennis Kamakahi.

It was summer 2001 now, and at a UH Alumni Association event in San Francisco, I met Saichi Kawahara and his Kapalakiko Hawaiian Band. To my amazement, he was interested in my expressed desire to sing and play Hawaiian music, which I figured my fledgling abilities at the ukulele would make possible. But his real hook was the fact that I was an accomplished player and improviser on the viola and violin, as well as the Japanese and Chinese 'fiddles.' Soon after, I was invited to apprentice with the Kapalakiko Hawaiian Band, and pretty soon after that I was performing in the front line with the group every Friday and Saturday night.


Over the next 18 months, I performed at least 150 gigs with the KHB, including 10 as bass guitarist, learning and singing hundreds of classic old and not-so-old songs from the traditional Hawaiian repertoire, and accompanying terrific artists such as the Lim Family featuring Sonny "Kohala" Lim (see photo below), Willie K, Bill Tapia, and Patrick Landeza. It was always exciting to accompany and provide music for several hula companies and artists, especially Patrick Makuakane and his Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu.


It was a thrill singing unison and harmony vocals on all the numbers, and even some lead vocals, and using my viola or 'fiddle' as though it were a steel guitar, playing the sweet characteristic fills or 'oli' between each verse repetition, and also taking a lot of the improvised solos or 'pa'ani.' Once a booking agent complained to Saichi about presenting a Hawaiian band with the 'inappropriate' front line instrument of viola, only to be sternly reprimanded by our leader, with a lesson about the historical precedent of the violin in Hawaiian music, which was set by the legendary Sam Li'a and others.

I will never forget that my first performance with the band was on September 9, 2001, and my first rehearsal after my debut with them was as always on the Tuesday following: 9/11/01. Passing San Francisco International Airport on that rare evening, en route to band headquarters near Candlestick Park, itself a place holding lots of memories for me, one couldn't help getting an eery feeling indeed, as entry to the airport terminals was blocked by extensive law enforcement and governmental presence.

My last performance, at the start of March 2003, came right on the eve of the Iraq War. Along the way there were lots of memories, like being right in front of the TV by the bar in the old Hukilau (Japantown SF)--- and in the middle of singing Ulupalakua --- as Barry Bonds hit his 71st homerun. It turned out I had not only predicted when I arrived that night that he would hit it, but even nailed the time!

Anyway, I'd like to say mahalo a nui loa to Uncle Saichi for all he taught me, and for the chance to sing and play my 'slack key viola' with the KHB. I really got alot from some of the others in the band, too, such as Vern Fernandez, Vince Fernandez, and Lola Tortolero. And I'll always be grateful to kumu hula Patrick Makuakane, who let me attend his oli (chant) classes.

Most recently it was my pleasure to introduce hundreds of English students in the greater Beijing, China area to the ukulele, and to Hawaiian music and culture. I taught most of my classes to sing such classics as I'll Remember You, by the late lamented Kuiokalani Lee, Honolulu City Lights by Keola Beamer, and Dennis Kamakahi's Maui Mountain Home. Oh, and White Sandy Beach, of course!

But the ukulele is great for singing any kind of song, and I was compelled to learn the songs that every student in China knows: Yesterday Once More (The Carpenters) and Hotel California!

--eg

A (not so) brief musical history

I always was attracted to all different kinds of music, hearing my mom's Nat King Cole and my dad's Dmitri Shostakovich with equal fascination. I had my first violin lesson on my 8th birthday, started playing bass guitar in rock bands at 13, and had toured Australia with the California Youth Symphony, and performed concerts with Duke Ellington and Jack Benny, before entering high school. I wanted to play bass with The Doors or Jimi Hendrix, and play like Jack Bruce or Phil Lesh, but at the same time I was starting to emulate guitarists and keyboardists like Carlos Santana, Jerry Garcia and Ray Manzarek on my electric violin.

In my freshman year, I quit classical violin lessons, and just then discovered the viola. Right on the heels of that, I heard Miles Davis for the first time, specifically his Bitches Brew album. That changed everything for me, and from that point, I was most interested in improvising that way on the viola. Under the influence of that album in particular, I also took up bass clarinet in my junior year, and got to join the Foothill Youth Symphony (Band) on that instrument for its tour of Costa Rica that summer.

I attended Berklee College of Music in Boston for one year, right out of high school. I was the first viola major in the school's history, and ended up studying theory privately with vibraphone great Gary Burton in lieu of a string specialist on the faculty. Briefly lived in NYC after that, playing in my Berklee buddy Craig Hollander's band Cosmos Deck. Craig's massive, polyrhythmic drumset anchored the band, which also featured Alex Prokofieff's virtuoso bass guitar and composer/savant John A. Quinn on electric piano. I never played in a more brilliantly original group in my life, and nobody's ever heard of them. My electric viola was the perfect lead voice for their group, except I was a little too far behind them in my musical development to catch up in time! They had already broken up, and only got together again because of my enthusiasm --- so I came back to the Bay Area.

Up to 1977 I continued to play bass guitar in my own group Rainbow Feel, but increasingly electric violin or viola in other groups ranging from psychedelic rock to modern jazz. My group was a volatile mix of those two styles, and introduced drummer/vibist Joe Caploe, in whose group Neck N Neck and album "Hearsay" I would be featured many years later.

In the mid-70s I was active in Bay Area avant-garde jazz unit Smoke, recording one unreleased LP, and later with proto-world fusion band Solar Plexus, appearing on their 1979 album "Earth Songs," including an Indian raga on violin. San Francisco's celebrated Yugoslavian emigre jazz pianist Larry Vuckovich heard that violin solo of mine played for him over the telephone, and soon after that we began working together on his debut LP "Blue Balkan" (actually recorded early in 1980 but not released until mid-1981). "Blue Balkan" featured one of my idols, vibes immortal Bobby Hutcherson, playing marimba together with my violin for a unique blend of Slavic folk melodies and driving modern jazz, and has since been re-issued on CD with additional 2001 recordings that also feature me, as "Blue Balkan; Then & Now". I also appeared on Larry's following album, "City Sounds, Village Voices," and continue to perform with Larry's Blue Balkan Ensemble to this day.

During the late 70s and early 80s I attended San Jose State periodically, playing viola in combos and even the big band there, winning an Outstanding Soloist award at the Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival. I got my first hands-on experience with Indonesian music there too, in the Javanese gamelan that resident composer Lou Harrison built. In a contrasting note, I performed Charles Ives' Second and Fourth Violin and Piano Sonatas in a 1978 recital with the late pianist/composer Michael McCandless. Harrison, who had been an acquaintance of Ives, believed it might have been the first such performance (of the 4th most likely, but perhaps even the 2nd) in San Jose or the Bay Area.

In this same time period 1977-1983 I was playing fiddle in several country and folk groups, toured Alaska with celtic/bluegrass group Banish Misfortune, and once was voted Best Fiddle by the Northern California Country Music Association. I also was nominated for a Bammy for my jazz violin work with Solar Plexus, and twice received honorable mention in the category Talent Deserving Wider Recognition, Violin, in Downbeat Magazine's International Critics' Poll --- most likely on the strength of my appearance on "Blue Balkan."

From 1981 on, I have performed all over California with world-jazz multi-percussionist Ian Dogole, as a member of his group Global Fusion, alongside him in the group Ancient Future, and in featured roles on four of his CDs. We also collaborated for much of the 1990s with bassist Bill Douglass in a trio called Sultans Of Swatch, and my CD features both players as well. I've done some of the best playing of my career over the years in support of Dogole, who's also an innovative composer and dynamic performer, based in Mill Valley, CA.

Recently, the group called Smoke has re-emerged in a new incarnation, CAJE (California Art & Jazz Ensemble), and I'm featured on viola and electric viola on their 2004 release "Opus de Funk Vol. 1." Other notable CD appearances include "The Crossing" by guitarist-composer Tom Taylor, "Asian Fusion" by new age/world beat artists Ancient Future, and "Tokyosphere" by American ex-pat John Kaizan Neptune, the shakuhachi (bamboo flute) master. On that album's "Tokyo Blues," I made what is thought to be the first jazz performance on the Japanese 3-string fiddle called kokyu. I've since played it on CDs by Ian Dogole, Ancient Future, Neck N Neck and others, as well as on "Pluck!"

Through the 1980s and into the early 1990s I was based in Honolulu, majoring in Japanese Area Studies and Ethnomusicology, but also studying and performing Beijing Opera. In 1986 and 1991 I toured the People's Republic of China as concertmaster with the University of Hawaii Beijing Opera Company, playing the 2-string fiddle called jing hu. I might have been the most accomplished 'red-haired devil' on that instrument, or even the only one, at that time.

I've also gone pretty far into multiple Indonesian musics, including Javanese, Balinese and especially Sundanese. Since the 1980s I've specialized in performing the Sundanese violin style called biola, studying with Andrew Weintraub, and performing in his group with the master musician Burhan Sukarma. Over the years I have incorporated this music into original jazz improvisations on my own CD "Pluck!" as well as on recordings by Ian Dogole and Ancient Future.

I'm proud of touring the West and Midwest with the pioneering San Francisco Mime Troupe on its 1994 Offshore tours, performing on viola, Japanese kokyu and Chinese jing hu in the band.



Though I returned to California in 1992 after almost 8 years in Hawaii, it wasn’t until 2001 that I took up Hawaiian music, singing and playing the ukulele. Within 6 months, I was performing every weekend with the Kapalakiko Hawaiian Band, probably the busiest and best-known Hawaiian band outside the Islands. But I wasn’t playing the uke --- I was playing viola! That’s right, in the Hawaiian paniolo style descended from Sam Li’a. I sang all unisons and harmonies, and some lead vocals, while my viola took the role typical of a steel guitar, supplying the traditional fills between verses, as well as solos. I also played several gigs as a bass guitarist with Kapalakiko (my first paid gigs on bass in 25 years!), and in all I must have sung at least 500 different classic songs. I’d guess that there at least 100 songs that I performed at least 100 times with that band. (See also my post below, "My start in Hawaiian music".)

It’s fun in the last few years to be performing songs that I’ve learned under the direction of a living legend, Kapalakiko's main man Saichi Kawahara, but also using skills on ukulele and vocals that I had to develop on my own. Maybe that’s why for me, the ukulele more than anything else is something I did just for myself, all by myself. It came purely out of my love and longing for Hawaii, but at the same time it tapped into a lifelong interest in plucking strings. It was as though I had been looking for the ukulele all my life, without knowing it. I have plucked the viola live and on record since the 1970s, and it was just as I discovered the ukulele and begun concentrating on Hawaiian music that I conceived the idea of summing this up on my 2003 CD “Pluck! (Directions In Jazz Viola).”

-- eg

Joyful sounds

One of my current activities that is really exciting is playing in the band with Vanessa Van Spall, an original singer-songwriter in the pop/rock/gospel genre.
Here we are at a recent San Francisco gig.

Beijing and Beijing Opera

In 1984, at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu, I began studying the music of Beijing Opera fiddles jing hu and er hu, with Beijing master musician Wan Ruixing. In 1985, I played these instruments in the University of Hawaii's production of Feng Wanchao (The Phoenix Returns To Its Nest). Subsequently, we received a high-level government invitation to tour China, and in the summer of 1986 we made an historic month-long concert tour of Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai. In addition to The Phoenix, we also performed an evening of American musical theater in those cities, for which I played jazz violin and co-wrote some music.

I continued to study jing hu with Honolulu resident and Shanghai ex-pat Yan Ren'an (George Yan), and occasionally to perform Beijing Opera music in Honolulu.

In 1989, the University of Hawaii Beijing Opera Company began mounting a new production, Yu Tangchun (The Jade Hall of Spring), which I now learned from Nanjing-based jing hu master Shen Fuqing, and which we performed in Honolulu in 1990. Shen "Laoshi" is the person who honored me by bestowing my Chinese name, Gao Yuefeng. Once again, a tour invitation to China resulted, though in the aftermath of the 1989 Tian'anmen Square government crackdown, we elected to accept private sponsorship only. We made a triumphant tour of Shanghai, Wuxi and Nanjing in the summer of 1991.

The University of Hawaii's renown for presenting Beijing Opera is largely attributable to the vision and direction of Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak (Wei Lixia), the first foreigner to study Beijing Opera with an established diva in the People's Republic of China, in the 1970s. Her expertise at libretto and at every nuance of the theatrical and musical aspects of this classic art form, along with her indefatigable enthusiasm, have earned her and the U.H. a considerable reputation for excellence in the area of Asian theatre. I'm grateful for her inspiration, support and friendship over many years in Honolulu.

Finally, in the fall of 2004, I returned to China to teach English in and around Beijing. There were some memorable experiences in those classrooms, arguing about communism and Taiwan, laughing about the US Presidential election, answering questions about Jesus, and mostly singing songs with ukulele. Lots of songs: I wish you could have heard my 8th grade Bayi Middle School students belt out "I Left My Heart In San Francisco"! Another highlight of this sojourn in China was a reunion with Wan "Laoshi," my first jing hu teacher from nearly 20 years earlier.

I'd like to read anything from my Chinese friends, the students and teachers from Bayi Middle School in Beijing, from Langfang College City and from Nankou Beijing Business School.

--eg

Eric is quoted in a recent article about Beijing Opera:
http://priceless.com/articles/a159.html

Natsukashii na! (Nostalgia for Japan)

CHRONOLOGY OF MY JAPAN EXPERIENCES

Japanese language, San Jose City College, 1983

*Exchange student representing San Jose, Okayama, June through December 1983 (perform with Takeshi Inomata & Force, Tokyo, chamber orchestra Zephyr and techno-jazz unit Control Flex, Okayama, study and perform on KOTO and SHAKUHACHI)

Japanese language, Foothill College, 1984

Japanese language, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1984-1990

**Visit Okayama on way home from China, summer 1986 (perform with Toshiyuki Honda featuring Rikiya Higashihara, Kurashiki [pictured below], record with Control Flex, Okayama, violin performance and interview in Japanese, Setouchi-TV, Okayama)



***Teach English in Isumi rural district, Chiba prefecture, August 1987 to July 1988 (perform and record with John Kaizan Neptune, Tokyo, and debut jazz on 3-string fiddle KOKYU)

****Masters Research on Japanese Jazz Musicians, Tokyo, and Japanese Language Intensive at Inter-University Center, Yokohama, summer 1989 (performed with Himiko Kikuchi & Himiko Band)

receive MA in Japanese Area Studies, U.H., 1990

*****one measly day in city of Narita on way to China for second time, summer 1991

guest performer on KOKYU with John Kaizan Neptune & Tokyosphere in Hawaiian Islands concert tour, 1991

--eg



above: Eric playing the kokyu.
See Wikipedia page on kokyu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokyu