Flying Fingers of Ukulele Death

Shimabukuro-san wa totemo sugoi deshita!!

So tonight was a great experience going downtown to the Florida Theater and seeing Jake Shimabukuro, world-renowned ukulele master! I was first exposed to him by the clip of him on YouTube performing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by George Harrison at Strawberry Fields in Central Park, NYC. That clipped actually jumpstarted his career. He must have an extra gene just for ukulele perfection because his performance tonight was bordering on freakishly genius! The sounds he got to come out of his instrument, and at that speed, were purely astounding and beautiful. If he didn't have all that inbetween-song banter, I would have thought he was some kind of idiot savante, like Rainman! Really inspiring - maybe I'll get my ukulele out again and start practicing. But it will be really depressing after what I witnessed tonight. His skill takes the ukulele to cosmic levels, unattainable by mortal man. To sum it up, Shimabukuro:ukulele::Einstein:quantum physics.

Here's what I remember of his set list tonight:

Ave Maria - Franz Schubert
Me and Shirley T. - original (J. Shimabukuro)
Flamenco piece (unsure of the title) - original (duet of J. Shimabukuro and Futureman)
In My Life - The Beatles
Spain - Chic Corea
Sakura Sakura - original (J. Shimabukuro - recreation of the koto (Japanese 13-stringed instrument)
Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper
Dragon - original (J. Shimabukuro - inspired by Bruce Lee and Eddie Van Halen!)
Orange Orange - original (J. Shimabukuro)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles (written by George Harrison)
?????? - one last original song of his that I can't remember the title of...

The opening act, Black Mozart Ensemble featuring Futureman, were incredible too. Futureman is a member of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (I wasn't aware of that before the show). The Ensemble featured four violinists, one cello, one banjo, one human beatbox (!)/jembe player, one solo Indian singer, and a rapper/breakdancer. Confused yet? It all worked though, and was one of the most diverse, unique performances I've ever seen, in the vein of Beck or Blue Man Group. Very original style! And they performed everything from Classical to Bluegrass to gospel to Indian. Sorry...like a tool, I forgot our camera, so the picture above is from Jake's website. Check out his site. If you like Jack Johnson, mellow Hawaiian music/ukulele, The Beatles, etc., you'll really dig his stuff! Later...