Tag Archives: ukulele

Jake Shimabukuro interview from TED conference

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The social media blog Mashable snagged a pretty cool interview with Hawai’ian ukulele maestro Jake Shimabukuro at the annual TED conference (TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design” and it’s a chi-chi invitation-only think-tank gathering of great minds) after his performance yesterday, which drew a standing ovation.

I’ve written about Shimabukuro before, and I’m glad he got to play in front of such an august audience. Good for him — I hope it sends him to superstardom status in all of pop music, not just ukulele fanatics.

I’m embedding both parts of the video interview, plus the very popular video of Jake creating new and amazing art out of the old George Harrison chestnut, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” There are tons of Jake Shimabukuro videos out there on YouTube. Check em out:

Jake Shimabukuro’s Ultimate Ukulele

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jakeshimabukuro.jpgThink “ukulele” and you’ll invariably get a quaintly exotic image in your head (and the wrong pronunciation – it’s “oo-koo-leh-leh,” not “you-koo-leh-leh”): warm sun, swaying grass skirts, coconut bras, colorful cocktails with umbrellas, and palm trees and a beach in the background.

It’s true, the ukulele is a stringed instrument that was born in Hawai’i (albeit it has its actual origins in a Portuguese instrument that was brought to the islands by 19th century sailors) and given its name, which means “jumping flea” in Hawai’ian. And it’s also true that the ukulele, which basically looks and acts like a miniaturized, four-string guitar, has helped spread Hawai’ian music and culture for a century, since Hawaiian music first caught the fancy of mainlanders during a 1915 exposition in San Francisco.

But the cute little uke isn’t just a tool for strumming up tourism to Honolulu. Continue reading →