Ukulele Magic – Jake Shimabukuro

Last year at FloydFest 2006, I missed Jake Shimabukuro’s performance.

I didn’t think much about it until I heard Scott Perry say, "I used to say I played the ukulele, until I heard Jake playing today. Now I say I am working on playing the ukulele."

Scott Perry is a competent musician and he plays many instruments well so this made me determined to look up Jake Shimabukuro and find out for myself. I found Jake’s website and learned that he has an international reputation and a number of CDs to his name.

I still hadn’t heard any sound clips, so I kept searching until I found a few brief mp3 snippets on a few sites. These were interesting, but I did not get the sense of a performer of the stature that Scott Perry had described.

I finally found this video on YouTube where Jake is playing George Harrison’s "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". You have never heard a ukulele played like this…