How I Got to Know Uncle George Kahumoku
By Jason Jerome, Lahaina Music
I will never know why Uncle George took me under his wing so many years ago. I was not especially deserving. But Uncle George is a farmer, and farmers know a LOT about what is needed to make things grow. The way I play ‘ukulele now is certainly only barely related to how I played it 15 years ago. The same could be said for how I go about many aspects of my life.
I was not raised on the island, and my first sense of Uncle George was as if he had just always been there somehow as if he was part of the of the land... part of the ʻāina... I arrived on Maui in 1995 and was very much involved in the restaurant scene at the time, though not at all in the music scene.
I had never seen Uncle George play. I had certainly heard him though, as his recordings were everywhere. But, I never thought I would meet him. In 2006 I left my restaurant career and we bought the music store, Lahaina Music (as I write this, it burned down in the Lahaina fires, 4 weeks ago today). But one day, in about 2010, I answered a phone call at the store. It was Uncle George Kahumoku. He was talking to me. He told me that he was playing at a local restaurant with several other teachers and that he was interested in starting a ‘ukulele club component to it, and wondered if I’d like to be involved in that, and if so, to come on by and bring a couple extra ukuleles in case anyone wanted to join in.
That is so much the way Uncle George works. He wanted to get others to join in. I had been teaching free community ʻukulele lessons at Lahaina Cannery Mall for a few years, and he was asking me to join in, and to be ready to help others to join in as well. This “community-based thinking” was not at all what I had expected, since I didn’t know the man aside from his fame. Hadn’t he just won a Grammy award or something? Why was he inviting me?
But he did. So I went.
It turned out that there were no additional people who wanted to join in on the ukes, but nobody was manning the soundboard, so I did that. It sure looked like fun playing with Uncle George, but it was a little crazy, seeing it up close. This was not the well-rehearsed stage performance I had perhaps expected of a Grammy award-winning artist. It was more like... watching a great backyard jam session, where they just transported that on stage with the microphones. I would later learn that Uncle George plays on stage exactly the same way he plays in his living room, or on the back lanai and that the Grammy albums had simply recorded and captured that magic.
I helped break down after the gig and carried out gear, and the last thing I carried out was Uncle George’s giant jumbo 12-string guitar. He thanked me graciously for coming and for helping and invited me back for the next week. I’m not one to swear, so I’ll just say, “HECK ya!”
The next week, I also brought up ukes. But again there were no additional people there wanting to play the ukes, so, he invited me to plug in and play with them on stage. “Me?” I thought to myself... you don’t even know if I can play yet, and you’re inviting me up, to play on stage, plugged into an amplifier?
But the atmosphere on stage was unexpectedly encouraging and welcoming. And disorganized, if you were expecting organization. These guys were all just spontaneously improvising. Who knew what song would come next? Nobody did. Anyone could pick and initiate a song, and all the others would play it. There was no sheet music for me to read – indeed, there was not even a setlist, and clearly, there had been no rehearsal or plan either. Coming from my background, this seemed outlandish, as I had not yet embraced “kanikapila style”. It was a bunch of guys jamming together, and they let me jam with them. And in so doing, we became friends, all of us together. And I helped again on sound, and on breakdown.
This went on for several weeks, and each week I really looked forward to it, like I had found a musical outlet unlike anything I had experienced before. You would need a new word to describe it, but playing with Uncle George is like some sort of conjunction between the words for “freedom” and “fulfillment.” But I did not have any of the skills yet to maximize the potential of that scenario. I could strum along with them, but I didn’t yet have the ability to markedly enhance anything by my being there.
I can’t recall how long it was before Uncle George invited me up to “a little get-together” up in Napili. Bring some ukes if you want, some people may want to play. Okay! I did not know what I was signing up for, and I did not know what I was being invited to attend... he said something about food -- was it like a backyard BBQ, but, held at a resort? It turns out, that the “little get-together” was the annual Uncle George Kahumoku Jr.Slack Key Guitar and ‘Ukulele Workshop which was being held, at that time, at the Mauian, in Napili. Something like 100 students came together – good students, dedicated students, committed students, having flown from all over the world to learn here on Maui. Oh, and the list of teachers read like a who’s-who of Hawaiian music. Uncle Ledward Kaʻapana. Uncle Dennis Kamakahi. Uncle Richard Hoʻopiʻi. Uncle Kevin Brown. Jeff Peterson. Herb Ohta Jr. Bob Brozman. And when I arrived, I found Uncle George in an apron, cooking food.
Serving others.
People went off to classes, with their master teachers. I was not a teacher, I was not a student, I was not an anybody. And then it was quiet. I found myself by the pool, with a bunch of ukuleles, and a small gathering of people associated with the people attending the workshop, but not directly in it themselves. Understanding better now the need to improvise in life, as in music, I asked if anybody wanted to learn to play and we launched a small impromptu lesson right there by the pool at the Mauian. We got a pretty good jam going and when the actual workshop students arrived back after their classes, there were big smiles all around.
I thought my work there was completed, and I was happy and fulfilled.
But then Uncle George invited me to come back that evening for the kanikapila. Bring my family. Plenty of food from his farm. Bring your uke.
And I sat in on a kanikapila such as I had never seen. Too many people to count. Skill levels varying far and wide. Song selections could come from anywhere, any genre, any person, though most of the songs were in Hawaiian. Humor was abounding. So was joy, love, and encouragement. And as the people played together, and sang together, the bonds of friendship were born, you could feel them forming right there as you played. The teachers were as good friends with the students as they were with each other. The newcomers, like me, were as welcomed as if we had always been there.
Of course, he was. I could not have predicted, nor did I perceive in any way, that this was the day that would change my life.
It was a life-changing moment. Uncle George had simply invited me to it. Well, and he had arranged it, promoted it, facilitated it, farmed the food for it, cooked the food for it, flown in all the teachers, and embraced all the students, true. But he had simply invited me. And I said yes. What if I had said “no”? I would be a different person today.
The jam was ending, and Uncle George made apologies for needing to leave, but he had to go pick up another load of mulch.
You’re... stepping away from this magic to go get... mulch? But yes, Uncle George is a farmer, and an opportunity to get good mulch is evidently something you just don’t pass up. And everybody understood that.
As years went by, this became, by far, my favorite week of the year. Better than Christmas. I remember one year when my name was first printed on the T-shirt with the others – I got an extra one and sent it to my mom. This world is wildly unpredictable, sometimes for better and others for worse, but I would never have foreseen my name printed on the shirt with all those other teachers. Soon Uncle George invited my young son JJ to attend the Workshop with me, and rapidly my son became so good on ʻukulele that I could barely catch him anymore. As his first teacher, nothing could make me happier.
Uncle George welcomed me. There is a phrase that you sometimes see at the top of restaurant menus, or preprinted on doormats: “E komo mai.” Knowing Uncle George now, I understand that those three words, printed alone, are nothing, if not personified. They are not a slick Hawaiian phrase to make your restaurant seem more “local;” they are not a place to wipe your feet. Rather, they are a way to live your life. I’ve never seen a man more generous, or more interested in helping others, than Uncle George Kahumoku Jr.
‘Ohana? To many, it is just a word from the animated movie, Lilo & Stitch, until you see that word applied in life. ‘Ohana is a very different word than I thought it was before I knew Uncle George. It is not just who is in your house for dinner; it’s who you will sacrifice for, in order to bless. And for Uncle George, the ‘ohana is broad, and it is deep. I remember still, during the pandemic, when Uncle George would bring boxes of food to town, and sell what he could. But then he did the coolest thing -- he gave a lot away. He gave a lot to me. He would swing by the music store (sometimes still towing a trailer with mulch) and drop off a box of food. Sometimes I didn’t know what it was, but I looked it up and learned how to cook it. And that food helped us get through some very tough times. It was more than just a box of food, as good as home-grown vegetables or fresh meat on ice can be.
It represented hope. It was a physical manifestation of the words, “Don’t Give Up, Jason, You Are Not Alone.” It represented care and concern, in Hawaiian the term is “Kokua,” right around the corner. The big smile on the face of Uncle George Kahumoku, Jr., giggling as he “just happened” to swing by, bringing hope.
Uncle George probably remembers none of the beginning of this story.
I’m absolutely certain he was not thinking, “I’m going to change Jason Jerome’s life” when he casually invited me to be included that day. He was just being Uncle George... his kind, giving, generous, fun-loving, kanikapila-jamming, “Hawaiian Renaissance Man” self.
But he did.
He did change my life.
I am truly grateful.
-Jason Jerome, Lahaina Music
