COURTESY OF MUDMAN PRODUCTIONS

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Get up and jazz

Fans have plenty of
performers to select
from in a weekend
of shows

Oh, we're so fickle. It is possible to love two at the same time, yes indeed. Both have curves and fine lines. They feel good in your hands. Both speak, but in different tones; one is sweet and fluid, one is sassy and liquid. One has a smooth neck that loves to be caressed, one erupts when tickled and stroked ...

The Rick Shea Band Where and When: 9 p.m. Friday at Anna Bannana's, 2440 S. Beretania St., and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Pikake Pavilion of the Waimea Audubon Center, 59-864 Kamehameha Highway Tickets: $20 advance and $25 at the door, available at Anna Bannana's and Kua Aina Sandwich Shop in Ward Village and Haleiwa Call: 946-5190

We're talking about guitars. What did you think? Although they're played the same way -- and often together -- acoustic and electric guitars are two different instruments, and require different sensibilities.

You can flirt with an electric, but once you've loved acoustic, your heart is stolen.

Which explains somewhat why axeman Rick Shea's upcoming gigs at Anna Bannana's and the Waimea Audubon Center are divided into acoustic and electric sets.

"I grew up like everyone else in Southern California, listening to Neil Young and the Flying Burrito Brothers and Gram Parsons, and was playing guitar in a little band by junior high school," recalled Shea, here on his third gigging-in-the-islands in three years. "Like those guys, you start looking back on your roots and discover folk and blues and acoustic music."

It became a way to make a living, playing seven nights a week in scuffling biker bars and all-night truck stops in the San Bernadino area. Shea made his rep as a picker who could also "sing like an angel." He wound up as one of the Guilty Men in loz-angle-lees rocker Dave Alvin's Grammy-nominated band, where he dabbled in lap-steel, mandolin and all things stringular.

But the appeal of the acoustic guitar is its warmth and simplicity. "It's so direct," said Shea. "There's something so wonderful about a guy just playing a guitar and singing -- it's such pure music, no cover-up. Everything else is icing."

He brought his classic Martin D-6 for the gig, expecting to do some recording this week. Generally, he plays a Martin Shenandoah with a Fishman Matrix piezo pickup which, again, is just icing. "The way to do it is facing the soundhole into a microphone. If you pay attention and work hard at sound, the richness of the tones can be terrific."

Sitting in with Shea at Anna's will be Sean Thibadeaux's Blue Mango band, whom he says are among the best musicians he's ever worked with. It will be interesting to hear how they integrate into Shea's blazing country baritone.

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The Honolulu Jazz Quartet
featuring guest trombonist
Conrad Herwig

While MANY former Hawaii jazz musicians make it a point to frequently return and do a gig or two with old friends and colleagues, it's been three decades since Conrad Herwig has been back in the islands.

Where: Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts When: 7:30 p.m. Friday Admission: $25 general and $23 Academy members, seniors, students and military Call: 532-8700

And considering his mind-boggling work schedule, it's no surprise. The respected trombonist splits his time between touring the world as a performer and teaching students at Rutgers University in New Jersey as a jazz music professor.

The "prof" is in town for this weekend only as a guest performer with the Iolani School band and with his friend John Kolivas and the Honolulu Jazz Quartet.

"We met when we played in the jazz band together at Punahou in the '70s," Herwig said by phone from Rutgers. "He was a freshman and I was a senior." Herwig had started playing the trombone at age 8, the tallest kid in the fourth grade who could handle maneuvering the instrument's slide.

"Since my father was a colonel in the Army stationed at Ft. Shafter, I also studied with military musicians on-and-off. It was a golden age for jazz in the '70s -- Les Benedict (who now lives and works in Los Angeles) and Ira Nepus were both my teachers. Les was also a student of Trummy Young's, and through him, I got to meet and hang with Trummy. He was everybody's idol."

After graduating in '77, Herwig went to the University of North Texas, "the first university in the U.S. to offer a degree in jazz studies." But he never graduated. His star ascended in the Lone Star state so high that he left school after three years to play in trumpeter Clark Terry's band in New York City. (He would later earn a bachelor of arts in ethnomusicology at Goddard College in Vermont, and his master's at Queens College in New York.)

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COURTESY OF JOHN KOLIVAS

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Herwig has been with Clark for 25 years now, touring the world. He's also played with the late Buddy Rich, the fine Japanese pianist/composer/bandleader Toshiko Akiyoshi, Frank Sinatra in the latter part of his career, and Latin greats Tito Puente and (regularly since 1985) Eddie Palmieri.

Switching between jazz and Latin music is second nature. "When I was in Texas, I started playing dance music like the cumbia and Tejano. The trombone is also a very popular instrument in Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Cuban music, so I naturally fell into it."

Herwig has played on numerous Grammy award-winning albums, and was nominated himself for his latest CD on his Half Note record label, "The Latin Side of Miles Davis." The live CD was recorded in New York.

The Honolulu concert will include some Davis material, plus John Coltrane and "our own originals," Herwig said.

Herwig said he reconnected with Kolivas at a jazz workshop on the mainland a few years ago and has kept in touch since. "This will be only the second time in 28 years that I've been back to Hawaii, and it's not even a vacation," Herwig said.

The brief visit will be "very nostalgic," he expects, recalling the six years he lived in Hawaii during junior high and high school.

And maybe the next time Herwig visits, it will be for a proper vacation with his wife and two sons. "I definitely don't want to make it another 30 years."

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Pianists Les Peetz and Clyde Pound

SO WHAT'S it take for a musician to survive in Hawaii? Ask pianist Clyde Pound. He's done it 33 years. "If you're trying to make a living as a professional musician, you need to have a lot of different sources," Pound said.

Where: Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday Admission: Free Call: 532-8700

"I was an arranger, and I ended up being a contractor and doing a lot of convention work on the outer islands for many, many years. I didn't start out to be a contractor, but I fell into it and was very grateful for the opportunities."

Pound moved to Colorado nearly three years ago to be closer to his grandchildren. He misses Hawaii, despite feeling that the local music business has gotten a lot "nastier" in the last few years.

"It kind of become 'How much will you do for how little?,' so I cut the cord on some of the things I'd been doing for some clients, but I was still really having a lot of fun doing some jazz gigs with Gabe (Baltazar) and some of the other jobs. I don't think musicians ever completely retire, but as you get older, it's nice to be able to say no if it's something that's going to be stressful or you don't want to do. I was lucky enough to get to that point -- really fortunate -- and I count those blessings."

Pound plays an occasional job in his new home state, and recently wrote a set of big band charts for a friend on the East Coast, but "the islands have kind of called me back to work here."

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COURTESY OF CLYDE POUND

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"I did some string parts for Keali'i Reichel's last album, and did some arrangements for a nature group, and I did the whole 20 tracks for 'Total Body Sculpt' on a computer. Connie Kissinger is still a good buddy, and I did a gig in Orlando, Florida with her, so it's through the islands that I've been doing work in Colorado. The islands and friends from here have provided stuff to do," Pound said.

Pound is back in Hawaii this week because Hawaii's ABC stores are underwriting another reunion with pianist Les Peetz at the Honolulu Academy of Arts on Saturday. It'll be the "fourth or fifth time" for Peetz and Pound, and for the first time they're adding a rhythm section, made up of bassist Stave Jones and drummer Darryl Pellegrini.

"I think Rachel (Gonzales) is (also) going to sing on Saturday. She's really a great singer. I wish there was more work for all these jazz guys, but you know how that is. It's few and far between, but they keep it going.

"We'll probably do one song that's completely free form. We're doing some Thelonious Monk and some Horace Silver and some standards. It's a mixed bag of jazz. (Les is) gonna play his interpretation of a couple of classical pieces, and I have some originals that I'm going to be doing without him. It's going to be a variety, but really about 99 percent jazz."