The Sunnyvale Sun

Cover Story

Photograph by Mark Tantrum

Native Dancing: Members of the Halau Na Wai Ola dance group perform at 'Hawaii Calls,' a fundraiser held Jan. 28 at Good Samaritan United Methodist Church of Cupertino.

Island Rhythms

Hawaiian music ßoats into Silicon Valley

By Stephen Baxter

When Hawaiian slack-key guitarist Patrick Landeza was growing up on what he calls the "island of Berkeley," his mother often lulled him to sleep with Hawaiian songs.

His father and their Hawaiian relatives would have parties and play an open-tuned style of guitar called Ki Ho'alu, or slack key, and tell stories about old Hawaii. They would sing about King Kamehameha, or reflections of the full moon or a waterfall.

Landeza was mesmerized.

He would beg them to teach him the songs, and he flew to the islands to study with masters like George Kuo. After touring with his own music for years, he's now a teacher in East Oakland, teaching slack key mostly to black and Latino children, and passing it on to his young boys.

After a sold-out show in Sunnyvale with Landeza and Grammy-nominated artist Dennis Kamakahi, it seems that Hawaiian music may be growing an extended family in the South Bay--and the stories are spreading.

"It used to be just the uncles, now there's all these new faces," Landeza said. "It's important I know all the stories because I'm the next generation to pass them down."

Growing up in Honolulu in the 1950s and '60s, Dennis Kamakahi's father and their neighbors introduced him to slack key. He eventually joined the famed Sons of Hawaii in 1974 and toured extensively. His son, David, picked up the ukulele, and they recorded an album together in 2003, "The Gift of Music: From Father To Son." The elder Kamakahi calls it one of his favorites, passing the music on.

DJ Vernon Chang also amplified some of Kamakahi's music during his Aloha Friday show on KKUP-FM.

Chang has been playing Hawaiian tunes for 15 years with the station. When Kamakahi came to San Jose with the Sons of Hawaii a few decades ago, he stayed with him, drinking Primo beer and playing music.

"He is one fantastic musician," Chang said of Kamakahi. Chang still plays baritone ukulele with his group, Eono Kane, and he said he picked up the sound on River Street in Honolulu in the 1940s and 1950s.

Since his radio show recently began streaming online at www.cocontyrls.com, he has had responses from Florida to Australia, passing on the aloha.

Many people dropped by during Chang's show at KKUP on Feb. 2. A friend raved about a new Hawaiian restaurant's fish ("It broke the mouth!") and Violet Kakaio came to thank everyone for attending a benefit hula show Jan. 28 show at the Good Samaritan United Methodist Church in Cupertino.

Born in Molokai, Kakaio has been practicing hula since the early 1980s, a few years after she joined the Almaden-based Hui Ilima Hawaiian social club. She danced with Kika and his Hula Maidens at the Cupertino show.

"I think our music is just special ... When I'm ill, it makes me feel better," Kakaio said. "I love the group."

The maidens practice in an empty room at a friend's cleaning business in San Jose, or at Kakaio's home, and they take it seriously. Another maiden, Jane Alvarado, danced at the church show though she was recovering from foot surgery.

In the early years, Kakaio remembers their instructor, Kika, spanking them with a yardstick if they were late. Now, her daughter, Valerie Supan, dances with her group.

"I'm rather proud of our ladies," she said.

For Dennis Kamakahi, his son's musical education is growing wider with each tour.

"We were up in Cleveland, Ohio, and there was a folk convention. He stayed up all night playing with bluegrass bands and Cajun bands. I said 'Holy mackerel, it's 6 a.m.,'" Kamakahi said. "I tell parents to encourage that, to see what kind of music he loves."

Many Hawaiian musicians said the music is often overlooked in Hawaii, but when Hawaiians come to the mainland to work or attend school, it often makes them ache to return to the islands.

From the deep voices singing in Hawaiian to the sweet guitar melodies and strumming ukulele--it can all be too much.

"We play the college circuit, and I do my first number and they're all crying," Kamakahi said. "They miss home ... and when I hear that sound, it brings me back home."

What is slack key?

Slack-key guitar uses a regular steel- or nylon-string guitar tuned to keys such as G or C, which "slackens" the strings. Many attribute slack key's roots in part to King Kamehameha III. When cows were first brought to Hawaii in the 19th century, the king hired Mexican vaqueros, or cowboys, to control them.

The vaqueros also brought guitars and played music, but when they left, the story goes, they forgot to teach the Hawaiians how to tune the guitars. The Hawaiians tuned the guitar to match their voices, in G or C, and a new style was born.