“Pahinui Hawaiian Band”
Pahinui Hawaiian Band
(Keala)

The old adage “Take your time, do it right” applies to almost all creative endeavors. This long-awaited debut album was originally scheduled for release last month, but the project’s co-producers — band members Cyril Pahinui and Greg Sardinha — wanted more time to complete and edit the 18-page liner-notes booklet that documents the recordings. The current projected release date for the hard-copy CD is the end of this month. The results are well worth the extra time spent.

The instrumental arrangements are impeccably traditionalist, and three of the four band members are on the A-list of Hawaiian music. Start with Pahinui, the most prolific of the late Gabby Pahinui’s talented sons, and one of the great slack-key guitarists and Hawaiian vocalists of his generation.

Sardinha, a few years younger than Pahinui, is similarly one of the few great Hawaiian steel guitarists of the baby-boom generation. Elmer “Sonny” Lim Jr. is remembered by old-timers as an early member of the Makaha Sons of Ni‘ihau and for his Na Hoku Hanohano Award-winning recordings as a member of the Lim Family of Kohala, but since then he has become a multitalented solo artist.

The fourth member of the group, Kunia Galdeira, is a member of the Pahinui ohana — grandson of Gabby, nephew of Cyril. Family ties notwithstanding, he earns his place in the group and on the album.

Galdeira’s voice is the first one heard; he sings lead on “Ahi Wela” in the “Ahi Wela/Mele o Kaho‘olawe” medley that opens the album. Casa span style="color: #0000FF;" hrefual listeners may initially mistake him for Pahinui because their voices are similar when heard separately. Pahinui clearly has faith in Galdeira’s capabilities because his nephew gets the lead spot on three other songs as well.

Give Galdeira his due, the man can sing, but when the band gets to “Ka Leo o ka Manu,” the first song Pahinui sings lead on, the difference is instantly apparent. Pahinui works his vocal magic on five other selections with the same exquisite results. The list includes “He‘eia,” a song he has recorded at least twice before, but when an artist of Pahinui’s stature decides to revisit something, the results are usually worth hearing. That’s certainly true here.

Lim sings lead on the second half of the “Ahi Wela/Mele o Kaho‘olawe” medley. The difference between his voice and Galdeira’s makes an effective and dramatic transition in the arrangement.

Two songs stand out as change-of-pace numbers. The first is “Ka Pua U‘i,” a Bina Mossman classic that the quartet performs as a brisk instrumental number with Sardinha adding a solo on an acoustic resonator guitar. Although the group omits Mossman’s lyrics in the recording, Pahinui and Sardinha set an excellent example for other Hawaiian recording artists by including them in the liner notes.

The group makes a bigger break from the basic format with “Fly Me to the Moon,” the pop standard first recorded by Kaye Ballard in 1954 and then by numerous others including Frank Sinatra. Pop songs are a Pahinui family tradition that go back to Gabby’s early days playing jazz and pop hits in local bars. Sardinha’s steel guitar gives the band’s arrangement a slight hapa-haole feel.

www.pahinuihawaiianband.com

"Ahi Wela”/”Mele O Kaho‘olawe”