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Sound of the Islands
There's nothing more evocative of the romance of Hawaii than the limpid, gliding tones of the steel guitar. The perfect aural backdrop to a waning tropical day in Waikiki -- the sunset giving Diamond Head a warm, golden glow -- with helpful tradewinds swirling the music in and around listeners in that gentle, caressing way.
9th Annual Steel Guitar
Where: House Without a Key, Halekulani, 2199 Kalia Road |
During this time every year, as part of the Aloha Festivals event calendar, the nightly entertainment is augmented with guest steel guitar players, invited by the hotel's longtime resident steel guitarist, Alan Akaka. He's also the instrument's most fervid supporter, himself a veteran member of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association.
"This is such a nice setting, very hard to beat," said Akaka on one such lovely late afternoon Monday. And it's a setting he wanted to keep for the festival, an idea the Halekulani management originally approached him with in 1995.
It's a mission of outreach that Akaka understands himself all too well -- his steel guitar playing stretches out to include his day job at the choral music program at Kamehameha Schools, as well as concerts and seminars he gives both here and abroad.
"The key to this festival is to get both players from Hawaii and surrounding areas, who play Hawaiian style," he said.
AKAKA HIMSELF will kick off the festival tomorrow, and will be its congenial host for its remainder. This year's guest list includes Paul Kim, a regular at the Halekulani on Wednesday evenings and whose credits include playing with Aunty Genoa Keawe and Na Palapalai; the excellent Greg Sardinha of Po'okela and an always-in-demand accompanist; New Jerseyite and Hawaiian music enthusiast Bill Wynne, who will also be a contestant at Frank B. Shaner's falsetto contest; and the promising young talent of Jeff Au Hoy and Hale Seabury-Akaka (and, yes, he is Alan's nephew on a cousin's side).
"Jeff has been playing quite a bit with the Brothers Cazimero, and even played with them recently at 'Iolani Palace in honor of the queen's birthday. He's only 24 years old, and he's super talented. Hale is in his early 20s as well, and I started him off when he was an eighth-grader at Kamehameha."
Akaka himself has been playing the steel guitar for 32 years and counting, learning it on his own when he was a teenager, starting with using the barrel of a clarinet as a slide on his dad's guitar.
Akaka would become proficient enough to receive a scholarship from the now-defunct Hawaii Music Foundation.
"I remember first hearing the steel guitar at luaus, during the time when you would be served at the table. Later on, I tried copying (David) 'Feet' Rogers' playing on that first Sons of Hawaii album. His playing was so simple, so sweet."
BOTH HE and Kim learned their musical skills under the tutelage of the great Jerry Byrd. Akaka said that his own style expanded with the help of Byrd. "What I learned from him was that, although technique was important, the number one thing was musicality. I remember him telling me that it's not the notes you play, but what you play between two notes."
Akaka and his fellow guitarists are perpetuating the sweet Hawaiian sounds of the steel guitar that were began from such masters as Byrd, Rogers, Uncle Benny Rogers, Billy Hew Len, Jake Keli'ikoa and others.
Akaka hopes that with the continuance of the festival that a renaissance of the instrument is just around the corner.
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