Interviews and Performances

“When I played my first chord, I was hooked. I fell in love.” Jake Shimabukuro, Virtuoso Honolulu,

Jake Shimabukuro

BIOGRAPHY: Jake Shimabukuro gets a lot of music out of a ukulele. That’s no accident, he’s been playing all his life. When he was four, his mother gave him a uke, showed him four chords and told him he could play two-hundred and fifty-three Hawaiian songs with those three chords. Even though no-one around him played, something kept him coming back to the uke and he taught himself to play the music around him. His parents listened to some Beatles, some , Jake listened to some Zeppelin, some Pearl Jam and when Jake took his playing out into local cafes, that’s the music he bought with him. As a teen working in a record store, he was asked by local uke legend, Byron Yasui, to audition as a substitute on a recording, and that audition began a friendship and opened Jake to a new world of classical style and technique. He toured a little, ended up in New York, recorded a video, playing While My Guitar in Central Park and posted it on YouTube. Before long, he started getting the calls: Tours, TV, radio, and he was on his way. That clip has been viewed over two million times. He has released an album every year for the last five years and all of them have won awards.

“The uke is part of the rags to riches stories of songwriters who came with nothing, and contributed to the musical landscape of the world.” Lil’ Rev, Historian and Performer Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Lil Rev

BIOGRAPHY: Born in Milwaukee, WI, Lil’ Rev grew up immersed in the culture of his garment-trade community. Family and friends told the stories and sang the songs, not only of the Old World, Eastern Europe, but also of the New World: . Pogroms and prejudice forced wave after wave of immigration from the stetls of Eastern and Central Europe through the turn of the last century. Some settled in small industry towns, some in large ones. The largest industry town was New York, where writers and composers on Tin Pan Alley cranked out hundreds of songs a day to sell on Broadway, Vaudeville and sheet music. Songs that hit, hit huge and many still survive a hundred years later around campfires and on long car trips, at a cellular level in North American society: By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Five Foot Two, Ain’t She Sweet, Singing in the Rain. Many of these composers were Jewish, and the Jews of Lil’ Rev’s community sang and loved their songs as well as the songs of old. For Lil’ Rev, these songs contain and convey a part of his identity and he is passionate about passing that music on to others. He tours the US, playing schools, concert halls, festivals, weddings and bar mitzvas, and when he plays, he tells the stories of those who wrote the songs and those who sang them, he tells the stories of his people. Bard, Jester, Storyteller, Teacher, Lil’ Rev is serious about the fun and sad beauty of the music of Jewish-American culture.

FOCUS: Tin Pan Alley’s heyday was the 1920’s, when uke stars were rich and respected, and ukes were selling in the millions. It was a time prosperous enough to support a large song-writing industry. In a time before recorded music made us all passive listeners, these artists got their money from the sale of sheet music. Fleets of salesmen flogged sheet music door to door, in stores and music halls all over North America and nearly every one of those sheets, along with lyrics and music, showed ukulele chords. Back then, if you wanted music, you had to make it. were cheap enough that nearly everyone could afford one, so the uke became the most popular instrument. Because of its connection with Tin Pan Alley, because of its place in the Rags to Riches stories he loves, because of its Old Tyme sound, Lil’ Rev chooses the uke to accompany his songs stories. The uke was at the centre of North American music back then, it was actually the voice of the people, and it still resonates to this day.

QUOTE: The ukulele is part of this body of rags to riches stories, this music that I love. Tin Pan Alley was a place where dreams could come true with hard work and a good name, and these old world guys and new world kids carved out a place for themselves, and in the process, wrote the music that defined and connected America. The ukulele was what people were using to play that music, so, in many ways, the music of this period was written for the uke. “Who else is going to make peace here?” Paul Moore, Teacher, Conductor, One-Man Band Hod Hasheron, Israel

Paul Moore

BIOGRAPHY: Paul Moore was born on the wrong side of the wrong tracks in Southend, London. He quit school early and landed a job on the stock exchange where, despite resistance to his long hair and casual demeanor, he worked his way up to be the youngest manager in his firm, in charge of Mergers and Acquisitions. One day he sold a company, knowing that it would be dismantled, all its jobs lost and its town, ruined. He quit the next day and got on the beatnik trail, digging worms for money, sleeping in a squat or wherever, and always playing music. By then it was the Sixties and Paul was in London. He jammed with Pink Floyd, saw in a club and was probably at Hyde Park with the Stones. A serious Hippie, Paul was always interested in communal living, so it was Kibbutz life that drew him to Israel. He spent a decade or so in a Kibbutz in Haifa, before settling in a suburb of Tel Aviv with his wife, Daphna, and son Alon. As the conflict in Israel heated up year after year, Paul found himself drawn into the conflict, beginning to blame and realized he wanted to be part of a solution, not part of the problem. By then he was making a living as a musician, so his time was somewhat flexible, and he had plenty of musical experience. Once he saw that the best way to unite communities is through children, the idea for a ukulele orchestra wasn’t far behind. The instrument is small, inexpensive and many songs can be played with a few very simple chords. Paul made the contacts, found the parents and kids and started the twenty-piece Ukuleles for Peace Orchestra. And four years later, Arab and Jewish children play together, picnic together with their parents, and make peace with their historic enemy. It’s a small thing, but it’s working to bring segregated communities together to better understand each other. It’s making peace.

FOCUS: Paul Moore does a little bit of everything. Everything in his home is cobbled together from something else, much of it hand-painted with elaborate designs. He is a jack-of-all-trades musically as well, playing washboard, ukulele and every imaginable kind of percussion, sometimes all at once. He is a dedicated recycler and junk-collector, playing only reclaimed objects in his one-man band. Paul Moore is a doer, a creator, a dreamer, constantly reshaping the world. This story will focus on his dynamism, following him on bike and road as he runs from gig to class to rehearsal to show, teaching the healing power of music to another generation.

QUOTE: I found myself saying “it’s time to leave, or I’ve got to do something.” And now, four years later, we’ve got an orchestra. “The uke has a powerful draw that I still can’t explain.” Jim Beloff, Ukulele Revivialist Clinton, Connecticut

Jim and Liz Beloff

BIOGRAPHY: Jim and Liz Beloff live in a sunny house in rural Connecticut, the hub of a massive ukulele network centred around Jumpin’ Jim’s website at Flea Market Music, where all your ukulele needs can be met. Jim was once a writer for Billboard, and Liz, a graphic designer for film, until Jim, always musical and in search of an instrument that truly spoke to him, found a ukulele. Smitten immediately, Jim went searching for music to play on the uke and found that the old music, with the uke chords on it, was out of print and new music had no uke chords. There was no sheet music for the uke. So Jim made his own. Jim transposed the music and Liz did the graphics and they managed a message board through which uke players everywhere could find each other and trade tales. It could be coincidence, but it was right around then, the late ninties, that festivals started getting organized and the first uke clubs met, many of them with Jim and Liz present. They are often credited with the revival of the uke, running workshops, writing and distributing how-to books and music, networking with ukers everywhere and generally embodying that sense of genuine charm that is the spirit of the ukulele.

FOCUS: Jim loves the uke and he has organized his life around making the uke and uke music available to the world. In addition to their publishing, Jim and Liz make their own brand of uke, the sturdy, colourful, plastic Fluke. Jim and Liz are a cottage industry global village style, teaching, connecting and serving the online uke community. We find them at home with their uke collection for an extensive interview, meet them at their booth at the New York Ukefest, and find them flea-market hopping on a Sunday morning, looking for design ideas, old ukes and Hawaiian shirts.

QUOTE: As soon as I picked it up, I knew I’d found my instrument, and then it just took over my life. The uke has a powerful draw that I still can’t explain- the wonderful body of music, the look, the feel of it, the sweet tone… It’s the whole thing. It just makes you happy. “I played music for years but never wrote a song until I got my first ukulele” Uni and her Ukelele, “Pop Raconteur and Chanteuse” San Francisco, CA

Uni and Her Ukelele

BIOGRAPHY: When Uni describes her dad as a big kid, she means it in the kindest possible way: that he was able to be excited by simple things, have fun. He wasn’t a musician, but he loved music, showing a young Uni what to listen for, what worked and what didn’t, and she credits him with her musicality. Her father’s joie de vivre is alive and well in Uni. She leaves a trail of sparkles wherever she goes. Kids love her. And she can rock right out on stage. Uni is a punk-pop princess. In her “rock stance” and ‘twenties dresses with matching hats, she riffs on her uke in a one-man show and somehow always manages to get the crowd singing and dancing. It wasn’t always this way. Five years ago she was singing backup for a venerable singer, when she realized that she didn’t want to make other people’s music, she wanted to make music that made people happy. The uke was the obvious choice for her to accompany herself, since it’s pretty easy to learn, there are a lot of songs you can play with the same three chords, and it sounds happy. So, Uni bought a uke and wrote her first song. She set up a website, wrote more songs, made some CDs and met lots of other ukers online. Five years into her move to a solo act, Uni tours the world, staying on the couches and spare beds of people she met through her website. They make music together, post clips online, work out new arrangements of songs they love, and appear in each other’s shows.

FOCUS: Uni’s mandate is to make people happy, she offers free hugs, she makes friends. Equally comfortable playing her uke for a party of six-year-olds as a sophisticated Parisian concert hall, her approach is the same: connect with the audience, make them comfortable and get them to sing and dance. The film will include concerts in many different venues and events and focus on the way Uni uses the ukulele to make connections, onstage and off, to build a network that frees her to travel and play music that makes people happy. We will follow her through San Francisco as she skates to meeting with friends and clients, find her as she arrives in Paris to meet her online friends and play the Paris Ukefest, and again as she says goodbye to them all at the end of her sold-out tour.

QUOTE: Once, when I was still singing back-up, my aunt said “why are you making other people’s music? You should make music that makes people happy.” That made me kind of mad for a while, I mean, what’s wrong with the music I’m making? But then it sunk in that she was right, so I bought a uke and I’ve never really looked back. “The uke gets a bad rap, just like young people often do” Peter Luongo, Principal, Teacher and Orchestra Conductor Langley, BC

Peter Luongo

BIOGRAPHY: Peter Luongo is a teacher and that is why he loves the uke. As a young music teacher, he enrolled himself in a program that used ukuleles to teach music and music literacy in the classroom. He convinced his principal to fund the program and it spread throughout the region. Twenty-five years later, thousands of children play the uke in Langley, and Peter runs an annual concert with two hundred and fifty kids on ukes. The final act of the evening is always the Langley Ukulele Ensemble, led by Peter Luongo. This youth orchestra sings, strums and plucks through swing, classical, Hawaiian and traditional numbers with awesome precision and grace. Most of the other two hundred and thirty kids are being conducted by former students of Peter’s, who now teach the younger players. The huge gym is packed with parents, some of them graduates of the Langley uke program. Ukulele is a tradition now in Langley. Most kids play, most kids have seen the orchestra, many hope to join one day and all know the name James Hill, widely considered to be one of the best uke players and composers in the world, who learned his chops right here under Peter Luongo in Langley BC, where playing the uke is the normal thing to do.

FOCUS: This story centres around the teaching of music. Peter teaches ukulele classes in the school where he is principal. He rehearses and conducts the Ensemble, runs teaching summits, and is starting a program bringing ukes and teachers into schools without a music program. A large part of the focus will be on Peter teaching and rehearsing, animating his students. We will also explore the lineage, from teacher to student and parent to child. Most of Peter’s children have played in the Ensemble and two still do. One of them is teaching and another child is now a successful musician. Peter was also the teacher of James Hill, who comes back regularly to teach, and who has written a ukulele program with Chalmers Doane, creator of the program that Peter Luongo adopted twenty-five years ago. Through these connections, we can see the creation, process and the result of a ukulele-based music program.

QUOTE: I love the ukulele for what it can do, for the way it can bring so many people together so intimately. We go to Hawaii and play traditional Hawaiian songs and the audience is often moved to tears. They come up to the kids afterward and thank them and tell them stories about what that song meant to them. How else could a fifteen-year-old have an experience like that? “The ukulele is a strumming machine. That’s what it does” James Hill, Performer and Teacher Truro, Nova Scotia

James Hill

BIOGRAPHY: James Hill is a ukulele virtuoso. What that means is that he can play so fast your jaw will drop, make it sound like he’s playing with a full band, and write beautiful songs in a dozen styles. James grew up in Langley BC, in the ukulele bubble, he calls it. Everyone around him played the uke, and James took it up just because it was there. He learned how to play very quickly and joined the Langley Ukulele Ensemble while still in grade school. James’ interest in the uke was holistic: he was interested in music through the uke, in learning how to get the most music possible out of the uke, in finding a voice that was uniquely uke. He concluded that what the uke can do better than any other instrument, is strum. The narrow fretboard means there is little distance to cover for each strum, making very fast strumming possible. This quick strumming, along with skillful picking is what gives James’ playing such a rich sound: lots of rhythm, lots of tone. James recently published a set of textbooks teaching ukulele in the classroom. He teaches, records, writes and tours with his ukulele, solo or with his wife, Anne, on cello.

FOCUS: James Hill is the flower of the Langley music system. He is an example of what is possible with a good music program and good instruments, but he is also himself: a truly skilled musician and a genuinely original musical thinker. It’s hard to categorize what James Hill does: a little Spanish, some Classical, Quebecois, Southern. What it all has in common is that it works on the uke. James works from the instrument out, figures out what sounds he can make and then lets the sounds guide the music. James’ special knowledge is the nature of the uke: what it does best, what sounds it can make, but he also knows the ukulele world. He toured wth the Langley Ukulele Ensemble and continues to tour, playing and teaching at festivals. We’ll meet up with James at a number of events, three festivals, and a ukulele teaching summit, where he takes us through the basics and not so basics of the uke.

QUOTE: The ukulele can do some things that no other instrument can do. You can strum in an almost infinite number of patterns, and that flexibility of rhythm more than makes up for the thinner tone of the four strings. On the uke, everything is within reach; you can pick, strum, hit the front and sides… the uke’s more limber than a larger instrument, it just has more options. “The ukulele is our ambassador.” Bosko and Honey, Kuranda, Australia and Chibo, Japan

Bosko and Honey

BIOGRAPHY: Honey grew up in Tokyo, attended good schools and went to work at a successful advertising firm, but the long commutes and longer days left her exhausted and nervous, so she hit the road to find something else. That something else was Bosko of Kuranda, cartoonist and violinist. They settled in Kuranda, a village with a railway station that disgorges a thousand people from eight to five every weekday. When they’re home, Bosko draws portraits for tourists and Honey works in a glass shop, but for several months every year, they hit the road, couch-surfing on a Ukulele Safari. Bosko and Honey run a uke blog in which they perform together and with other ukers, film it and post it. Bosko and Honey network through the internet, but they let their music do the talking through their intimate performances of sweetly pensive pieces. Bosko and Honey create a haunting beauty with their ukes with simple melodies intricately played.

FOCUS: Bosko and Honey exude musical intimacy even after weeks on the road. It is this connectedness that makes them so watchable. They seem to transcend media, are just as mesmerizing online as in person. They also transcend space, connecting with the world from a village in the rainforest, playing songs they wrote through the long rainy season. We catch up with Bosko and Honey at the New York Ukefest, where we see them perform, and film and cut their blog, and then again at their second home base in Tokyo, where we explore the eclectic world of the uke in Japan. Bosko and Honey aren’t virtuosos, they just create beautiful music together, a music greater than the sum of its parts.

QUOTE: When I was back in Tokyo working, I hated the rain. The wet, the inconvenience, there was nothing good about the rain. Now I hear the music in it and I play it with this ukulele. “The ukulele makes so many things possible.” Tim Lewis, Taunton, Somerset, UK

Tim Lewis

BIOGRAPHY: Born and raised in Bath, Tim chose Taunton, a thousand-year-old market town, to settle down and make a life. Once a huge fan of British ukulele superstar George Formby, the father of two rediscovered the uke four years ago and taught himself to play via the internet. On the way he made some friends and contacts, jammed on skype, and learned there were other ukers in his town. He let the word get around that they’d meet in a pub and three years later, they still do, forty strong, ages twelve through ninety. They sound good too. Tim and his wife, Mandy, work out harmonies together in the kitchen and they each lead a section. Meanwhile, back at the school where he taught, Tim caught wind of a program that required students to perform on musical instruments, and convinced his principal that the uke was the way to go. Three years later, he’s written and published how-to-teach uke books and has a thriving ukulele music program.

FOCUS: Tim’s story is a very British story. He grew up adoring the music hall star George Formby, who had become something of a national hero as he toured battle zones during the war to keep the soldiers’ spirits up. Formby played humourous, often bawdy songs in a complicated, syncopated style that was all his own. Groups still meet to play Formby songs just as Formby played them. A hundred thousand people came to his funeral in 1961. Tim Lewis is a window into British uke culture in its heyday, and also an active part in every element of the third-wave uke: communities, nostalgia and teaching.

QUOTE: Don’t get me wrong, I love George Formby, everyone does, just about. I just don’t see any need to do like the George Formby Society and play every one of his songs exactly the way he played it. It’s one thing to play old songs, but you want to create something new, something you’ve made together. They’re more like church, and we’re the party afterward. “I know they go through hell out there and the ukes help them feel a little better.” Anita Coyoli-Cullen, Huntingdon Beach, CA

Anita Coyoli Cullen

BIOGRAPHY: Anita Coyoli-Cullen has always loved all things Hawaiian. She had a daughter in the marines and was well used to sending over care packages to her daughter’s unit, so it wasn’t a big stretch, when she heard the Hawaiian National Guard was in Iraq, to think of sending them a box of ukuleles. Anita gathered up some donations and found a sponsor and has sent over 1500 ukes to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as the charity Ukes for Troops. The response has been overwhelming and profound, and requests far exceed resources. Right now, there are over a thousand ukuleles in Iraq.

FOCUS: Ukuleles have long been associated with war. The uke spread from Hawaii to the US as a result of a military take-over, and then to Japan and through Europe during WWI. This happened for a number of reasons: Ukes and knapsacks are a natural fit, and a soldier always has a knapsack. Ukes and boats: on a boat, space is at a premium. Only small instruments need apply. In fact Admiral Bird as well as Ernest Shackleton took ukers on their long, cold voyages. Shackleton hired one seaman because he could play the uke and brighten up the slow, dark nights. Ukes go naturally to war because they go easily on foot or boat, and for that same reason ukes were chosen by explorers, but there’s more. The uke seems to lighten spirits. Anita’s story introduces the topic of ukuleles and war- George Formby cementing himself in British affections by touring among wartime troops, Bob Hope uking at the USO, huge rise in sales during both world wars, showing the uke’s long history of raising spirits during wartime.

QUOTE: It’s just a little good thing that I do. I’m not changing the world, I’m just trying to show my support for the troops. I could send food, but it’s gone in a day or so. If I send a uke, a tuner and some music, well, I’ve given them something that lasts. “There’s a lot of music in the ukulele, a lot of music.” Dan Scanlan, Conductor, of yore Grass Valley, CA

Dan Scanlan

BIOGRAPHY: Dan Scanlan has half a dozen brothers and sister and all of them live within an hour of him. They’re a tight-knit clan and each one has the glow of someone well-loved. But then, there’s a lot of love around here. Grass Valley is an old hippie community. Many of the early Haight hippies left when things got weird, and some settled in these old abandoned mining towns up in the Rockies. Community, self- sufficiency, support, these all mean a little more in a place where roads can close for weeks at a time. And community, face time, is what Dad Scanlan does best. He’s a one- man show, plays with friends and he leads the Strum Bums: twenty of the hardest- working ukers in the state of California. The Bums tour nursing homes, libraries, hospitals, play benefits and concerts, back up local musicians, two, sometimes three times a week. Anyone can join the Bums, you just have to ask.

FOCUS: Dan Scanlan has known the uke his whole life. He has studied it, written music on it, and been, more or less, its ambassador for nearly fifty years. While Dan has borne witness to the second half of the uke’s history, he has carefully investigated the first half. With Dan, we will explore the earliest days of the uke and how it got its name, as well as its move to Broadway and Tin Pan Alley.

QUOTE: The ukulele has always been all about fun. From King David in Hawaii though Tin Pan Alley, right down to Tiny Tim. The uke can’t help but be fun and you can’t help but have fun playing the uke. I mean look: pick up the uke. You haven’t raised your status any. You don’t look like a tough guy now, you can’t make a big noise, you can’t imitate any really cool uke players, so you have to be you. And that’s really fun. “There’s a lot of music in the ukulele, a lot of music.” Dan Scanlan, Conductor, of yore Grass Valley, CA

Del Ray

BIOGRAPHY: Del Ray started on guitar at age four and has specialized in all things with strings since then, deciding at twelve to become a Blues Queen. She’s played with the greats and not so greats, touring and recording steadily for over twenty years. It was inevitable that Del would pick up a uke, partly because of her love of early American music, partly because it has strings, but when she did, a new kind of music came out, something fun and… well, not blue. So, she hired a bass and another uke and made the leap from blues to bluegrass.

FOCUS: Del Ray’s historical expertise allows us to explore the role of women in ukulele music. While it is men like Roy Smeck, and George Formby that often hold the spotlight, Tessie O’Shea and May Singhi Breen were there from the beginning, writing and playing original material on stage, screen, radio and record. Hawaiian players like Auntie Genoa played uke right through from the First World War to her death last year, keeping the music alive, quietly, just for itself. Del Ray guides us through the lives and personalities of the women of uke: Two-Ton Tessie O’Shea, formerly of Wales, belter of British music hall melodies, master uke strummer, dancer, comedian, and star of stage and screen wowed audiences with her audacious performances, often including the song Two-Ton Tessie from Tennessee, in which she pokes fun at her own girth. And May Singhi Breen, The Ukulele Lady, who for sixteen years had a radio show with her husband, Peter DeRose, called Sweethearts of the Air, May on uke, Peter on piano. However her contribution to ukulele music is much greater than that. It was May that first brought ukuleles into the classroom, insisting that its size and simplicity made it easy to teach and learn. She taught students, she taught teachers, she made the first ukulele instructional record, she even designed and played the first electric uke. Del Ray will tell us the stories and play us the music that introduce the women of the uke, brought to life with music, film and photographs of the period.

QUOTE: My playing combines country blues, stride piano, classic jazz and hillbilly boogie through the sensibility of an autodidact trailor-park esthete.