The fifth annual Gabby Pahinui Slack Key Festival and kanakapila, which took place at Waimanalo Beach Park in August, followed by the fifth annual Seattle Slack Key Festival on November 10th, is one of the many ways in which Cyril Pahinui is carrying on the legacy of his father and slack key music. The complex beauty of Hawaiian slack key music or kiho’alu inspires subtle emotions in the listener, but the music also tells the story of Hawaiian cultural history.
The choral nature of Hawaiian music is derived from its origins in chant, hula and drumming, a calling out for connection to the ancestors and the spirits of the natural world. When ships and people began to arrive on Hawaiian shores, the influences they brought were assimilated into the culture. From the hymns of the missionaries the Hawaiians acquired harmonics and melodies. The Portuguese, Mexicans, Spanish brought their guitars and after a long day of labor made music into the night. Island musical traditions also reflect the notion of ‘ohana, working together to create. In Hawaiian music, can be heard the stories from the ‘aina, of place and the people connected to those places. In this way, Hawaiian culture is preserved and understood, and so it’s no surprise that Gabby “Pops” Pahinui became an icon for the 1970’s Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance.
Gabby Pahinui grew up in Kaka’ako when it was a close knit village with ethnic clusters of residents, small stores, schools and parks. He learned to play by listening to and watching musicians playing in backyard kanikapila and for luau. As he developed musically he found himself straddling the grass roots world of Hawaiian music and the commercialized entertainment world, but his musical home was always kanikapila; his Waimanalo home, tucked in at the base of the Ko’olaus, hosted a nonstop flow of musicians who jammed into the night, notes twined together, leaping over the Ko'olaus, across the ocean, calling the spirits of the ancestors.
The choral nature of Hawaiian music is derived from its origins in chant, hula and drumming, a calling out for connection to the ancestors and the spirits of the natural world. When ships and people began to arrive on Hawaiian shores, the influences they brought were assimilated into the culture. From the hymns of the missionaries the Hawaiians acquired harmonics and melodies. The Portuguese, Mexicans, Spanish brought their guitars and after a long day of labor made music into the night. Island musical traditions also reflect the notion of ‘ohana, working together to create. In Hawaiian music, can be heard the stories from the ‘aina, of place and the people connected to those places. In this way, Hawaiian culture is preserved and understood, and so it’s no surprise that Gabby “Pops” Pahinui became an icon for the 1970’s Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance.
Gabby Pahinui grew up in Kaka’ako when it was a close knit village with ethnic clusters of residents, small stores, schools and parks. He learned to play by listening to and watching musicians playing in backyard kanikapila and for luau. As he developed musically he found himself straddling the grass roots world of Hawaiian music and the commercialized entertainment world, but his musical home was always kanikapila; his Waimanalo home, tucked in at the base of the Ko’olaus, hosted a nonstop flow of musicians who jammed into the night, notes twined together, leaping over the Ko'olaus, across the ocean, calling the spirits of the ancestors.
And indeed, the roots of slack key can be found in hula ku’i , a style of hula that joined old and the new together and emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century in the time of David Kalaukau’a. This can be heard clearly in Gabby’s version of Hi’ilawe. When his voice is carrying the melody, the guitar becomes a percussion instrument, Gabby strumming with the driving beat of the ipu, and then the break echoes this with his thumb setting the beat on the base string while his fingers fly, creating an ornamented mele. Gabby’s vocal style also reflects the varying tones of the chanter, at times earthy and at others celestial.
For Gabby, it was always about the music and while his was a unique talent, he knew that It was not a solo talent, that his music was derived from the aloha of many hands, voices and strings blending to tell the stories. This sense of being connected together by something larger than ourselves is the pure aloha of Hawaii. This is the legacy being perpetuated through the efforts of Cyril Pahinui and the many musicians of Hawaii through such events as the upcoming Seattle Slack Key Festival, but also through the willingness to share the aloha that is the Hawaiian way.
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