Live on Tour

A master and impresario of kī hō’alu (Hawaiian slack key guitar), George Kahumoku Jr opens this concert recording with a few brief and rather pleasant tunes, and the advice from his mentor that, “We should be sharing our Hawaiian culture outside our ohana [family].” The 72-year-old Kahumoku has made a lifelong global mission of this, touring and recording extensively. Musician and producer Daniel Ho and actress and singer Tia Carrere, are a generation younger and from Hawaii, now living in Southern California. Their sharing of their native culture here is infused with other musical influences. Appealing to haole (non-native) audiences are familiar offerings like ‘Aloha ’Oe’ (sung by Carrere in a luminous alto, as she did on the soundtrack to Disney’s Lilo & Stitch), the original form of ‘Hawaiian War Chant’ (adapted by Tommy Dorsey and others) and a Hawaiian take on ‘Brahms’ Lullaby’ in ‘Hiamoe Maika‘i’. Ho pairs sweetly with Carrere on some vocals and provides piano accompaniment and soloing in a dulcet style evocative of the late George Winston. For more strictly traditional Hawaiian music by Kahumoku and others, with vibrant vocalisations and gorgeous open tunings and ornamentations of guitar and ukulele, look to Winston’s Dancing Cat label.