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Jake Shimabukuro – Pushing the ukulele boundaries

I spent some time in Nashville talking to Van Fletcher Jake Shimabukuro’s manager about the next Jake record after Nashville which was already a departure from what many uke folk might expect. Van and his wife were good enough to invite me to listen to some of the new tracks which are yet to be fully mixed and mastered. Its clear to me that Van is a 100% music lover and his basement is remarkably similar in some ways to my onw music listening room – serious high end hi fi with multi speaker set up and a collection of box sets, CDs and Vinyl that essentially tells the history of all great music.

Michael Ross who runs Guitar Moderne and who is a long time friend and our wives were in for a treat that was really quite something. I’m not going to go into detail about who is playing on the next album or the tracks, but let me say now, this is a whole new jump for ukulele playing. Like many folks I love Jake’s brilliant covers of Queen and The Beatles tracks that made him so famous. When I interviewed him literally two years ago I was amazed at his diverse musical interest and I now know where a lot of this came from. The Nashville album hinted at what Jake is capable of in terms of pushing the boundaries of the uke. The next album is a whole quantum leap that I think will amaze many folks and really show just how this mighty instrument can be used in a really exciting way.

I for one really welcome these explorations which will only help show that the uke can be used for a huge range of sonic expression far beyond what many folks might imagine. Keep an eye out for Jake in 2018 and prepare for something that will really rock your musical world.

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