While Jake Shimabukuro is not a guitar player (he plays the ukulele), he’s a virtuoso of his chosen instrument and I think he might be of interest to guitar players. If you’ve never heard of Jake, then you’ll be amazed at the sounds that he can get from the ukulele. Jake is from Hawaii, and much of his music bears that influence; however, his music also has a jazzy feel to it. Jake has been playing and recording for years, but has recently received rave reviews in the press. For example, Frets magazine recently declared him the “Jimi Hendrix of the ukulele.” Jimmy Buffett reportedly liked him so much that after hearing him play, he invited him on tour with him. Jake has also recorded with Bela Fleck. Shimabukuro has released several albums over the past few years, the most recent of which is Dragon.
UPDATE: Bill mentioned in the comments that there was a video on Google Video of Jake playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps. I found it, and here’s a link to the video.
He is fantastic. A friend of mine from Hawaii brought me some autographed CDs from a show there and it’s just amazing.
There is a video of him on Google video I believe doing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.
And no, he is a guitar player. He plays backing tracks on several of the albums.
Thanks for the info, Bill. I’ll have to see if I can find that video. Thanks for the clarification that he does play guitar.
I was having lunch yesterday with a friend, and something in the background music caught my attention. Listening more closely, I realized that it was a song off of Jake’s “Dragon” album! I told my friend, “Hey this is Jake… uh… something! I can’t pronounce his last name, but that’s a ukulele he’s playing!”
I was also pleasantly surprised that the next song they played was off of Michael Hedge’s “Taproot” album. Somebody at that restaurant sure has good taste 🙂