FRIDAY-SUNDAY
>> Music festival to fill the Shell with isle tunes
Revive the Live, the three-day festival of island music, returns to the Waikiki Shell this weekend.
The festival has become a major showcase for styles ranging from Jawaiian to reggae to traditional Hawaiian and island-influenced R&B, with both new and familiar faces on the island music scene. It offers the chance for disbanded bands to regroup and for expatriate islanders to return to a welcoming audience.
REVIVE THE LIVE MUSIC FEST
>> Where: Waikiki Shell
>> When: 5 p.m. Friday-Sunday
>> Cost: $20 (daily, lawn and terrace seating) to $100 (VIP three day pass)
>> Info: 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com
Such will be the case with Friday’s lineup, which features a reunification performance of Koa‘uka. The band had a hit album with 2001’s “Strictly Koa‘uka Style” but has been absent in recent years. Also making a return is Baba B who grew up in Waianae and is now based in Las Vegas.
Saturday’s and Sunday’s performances will showcase Fiji, pictured at right, whose fusion of reggae, hip-hop and jazz have made him one of the best-known Polynesian musicians in the world. He won a Na Hoku Hanohano Award in 1998 for Male Vocalist of the Year. Other Saturday performers include Hoonua, Ekolu, B.E.T. and Hawaii island group Kolea.
Sunday’s program features some of the seminal performers on the island contemporary scene: Mana‘o Company, Kapena and Ho‘aikane. Visit revivethelivemusicfestival.com for a full lineup.
>> Performers from Asia and Hawaii celebrate cultures all weekend
The Pan-Pacific Festival brings three days of music and dance from East Asia and Hawaii to Waikiki and Ala Moana Centerstage this weekend.
PAN-PACIFIC FESTIVAL
>> Where: Ala Moana Center’s Centerstage, Waikiki Beach Walk, Waikiki Hula Mound and Kalakaua Avenue between Uluniu and Seaside avenues
>> When: 10 a.m. Friday-Sunday
>> Cost: Free
>> Info: pan-pacific-festival.com
Dozens of groups from Japan, Hawaii, Taiwan and Korea participate, presenting traditional and contemporary dance.
Friday’s activities include the Pan-Pacific Ho‘olaule‘a, from 7 to 10 p.m. on Kalakaua Avenue between Seaside and Uluniu avenues, and the Street Dance Festival at the Waikiki Beach Walk Plaza Stage from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Japanese choreographer and dancer Kento Mori, who has performed with Madonna, Chris Brown, Usher and Chaka Khan, will provide commentary for the competitive event, which is popular with Japanese visitors.
If you want to dance, head to Saturday’s Punahele Party, also at the Waikiki Beach Walk Plaza Stage, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., where you can hear Na Hoku Hanohano Award-winning musician Weldon Kekauoha.
Sunday’s parade begins at 5 p.m. It’s usually one of Waikiki’s largest, featuring hundreds of marchers.
THURSDAY
>> Hot piano player to hit Chinatown Thursday night
Pianist Gerald Clayton, pictured, brings his stylish jazz tones and an impressive jazz pedigree to The Arts at Marks Garage for a concert this week.
PIANIST GERALD CLAYTON
>> Where: The Arts at Marks Garage
>> When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
>> Cost: $22
>> Info: eventbrite.com
Clayton is son of acclaimed bassist John Clayton and a nephew of decorated saxophonist Jeff Clayton, and he’s studied jazz with Shelly Berg, Kenny Barron and Billy Childs. Oscar Peterson was an early influence, and Gerald Clayton toured with Grammy-winning bandleader and trumpet player Roy Hargrove for three years, so he knows his jazz idioms. That being said, his tunes often seem like impressionistic tone poems, performed with a light, warm touch.
He’s a four-time Grammy nominee, receiving nominations for the 2012 album “The Paris Sessions” and 2013’s “Life Forum,” for the composition “Battle Circle,” which appeared on a recording with his elders, and for a jazz improvisation on a Cole Porter tune from his first album, “Two-Shade.”
His latest album is “Tributary Tales.”
THURSDAY-SEPT. 25
>> Kapono hosts island artists at Blue Note Hawaii series
Henry Kapono kicks off a series of performances at Blue Note Hawaii that put a spotlight on some of Hawaii’s most acclaimed musicians.
HENRY KAPONO SERIES
>> Where: Blue Note Hawaii
>> When: 6:30 and 9 p.m. Thursday
>> Cost: $21.25-$65 individual concerts, season pass $145-$250
>> Info: 777-4890, bluenotehawaii.com
The monthly performances, billed as “Henry Kapono’s Artist to Artist Series,” will have Kapono talking story with each artist and then joining them in performances of some of their work. “We’ll be talking about touring and their beginnings, stuff people really want to know,” Kapono said. “Then they’ll do a little show of their own songs and talk story about the songs and how they wrote them.”
Kapono said people often ask him about a song’s origins. “You sit down and try to write a song and it doesn’t come, and then you hear somebody say something in a certain way and all of a sudden a song comes up,” he said. “It spins off that one feeling.”
The series kicks off Thursday featuring the music of Cecilio & Kapono, the popular duo that Kapono formed with Cecilio Rodriguez in the 1970s. He’ll talk about a few songs, some of their gigs, “stuff people don’t really know, things that happened on the road.”
Future events feature Malani Bilyeu of Kalapana on July 13, Jerry Santos of Olomana on Aug. 19 and Keola Beamer of Keala and Kapono Beamer fame on Sept. 14. Kapono was inspired to curate the artists series after visiting the Hawaiian music exhibition at the Grammy Museum in L.A.