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New
album... BILL TAPIA,
Live at the Warner Grand Theatre
The 100th Birthday Concert THE OFFICIAL
MEDIA PAGE FOR THIS ALBUM
CD release:
June 2011 (available for pre-order now - buy
link)
Digital release: May 24, 2011 (Amazon)
If there were a Mount Rushmore for ukulele
players…
Bill Tapia would be on it!
Bill Tapia was born in Hawaii on New Years Day,
1908. At age 7, Bill took up the ukulele. By 12,
he was playing professionally in vaudeville. In
1939, he wrote one of the world’s first ukulele
instruction manuals. In a career that spanned
the 20th Century, Bill played guitar with many
of the leading singers and musicians of the day,
including Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Billie
Holiday and Hawaiian music legends like Johnny
Noble, King Benny Nawahe and Sol Ho’opi’i. He
was also a teacher to the stars. Among his ukulele
students were Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, the
Little Rascals, Jimmy Durante and Arthur Godfrey.
In late 2007, as he approached his 100th birthday,
this legendary artist–singer, raconteur, ukulele
player, and jazz guitarist–took to the stage of
the historic Warner Grand Theatre. Joining in
the celebration was an audience of fans from the
U.S. and around the world. It was actually a return
engagement, albeit slightly delayed–he last played
there in 1935.
This time around, Bill was accompanied by renowned
musicians Kristin Korb, Earl Allen, Frank DeVito,
and Abe Lagrimas Jr. for a magical evening of
American jazz standards and Hapa Haole Hawaiian
classics hosted by King Kukulele.
Today, Bill Tapia is the world’s oldest active
musician. In May 2011 he is scheduled to receive
the Na Hoku Hanohano Lifetime Achievement Award
in Hawaii. At age, 103 he continues to perform
and teach.
Bill Tapia: An Appreciation
(full version:
pdf
-
link)
The amazing thing about Bill Tapia is not his
age. It’s his music. To know the music is to know
the man. It’s all about ease, elegance, flow,
and, yes, timelessness.
For most of his musical life, Tapia’s been known
as a jazz guitar virtuoso. In a career that spans
the 20th century and swings energetically into
the 21st, he’s played with many of the leading
lights of American and Hawaiian music.
One particularly meaningful close encounter occurred
in Hollywood before World War II, when he befriended
electric guitar pioneer Charlie Christian. “He
was my hero,” Tapia says. “I loved that guy. He
had a style of his own, and until today every
guitarist plays some of his stuff. We jammed from
one to 4 a.m. after his gig at the Palomar with
Benny Goodman, just him and me and a bass player.”
These days, however, Tapia is most closely associated--not
with the guitar--but with the childhood instrument
that launched him on his musical journey and which
bookends his career—the ukulele. To his far-flung
fans, he is the once and future “Duke of Uke.”
Like the man who plays it, it’s a humble instrument,
but one that can slip easily into life’s ebb and
flow. User-friendly and highly portable, it can
move through the world without fanfare. But in
the hands of a master.. read
more (pdf
- link)
