Artist:     Jake Shimabukuro

Album:     The Greatest Day

Label:     JS Records

Release Date:     8.31.18

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In 1956, I asked for a guitar for Christmas. The combination of a brother, sister and a tight one-income budget shrunk my request by two strings and I got a uke instead. It would be another year before Santa rectified his mistake and the guitar took me to places I could have never imagined back then. That said, I could of spent all 62 years with that first instrument and never have visited one tenth of the places Jake Shimabukuro has gone on the diminutive fretboard he is at one with.

The Greatest Day finds him reunited with his Nashville Sessions rhythm section of Nolan Verner (bass), Evan Hutchings (drums) and Dave Preston (guitar) added in. Shimabukuro, along with co-producer R.S. Field, cut the basic 12 tracks in Nashville again, of both originals and songs from Lennon & McCartney, Rod Argent, Jimi Hendrix, and Leonard Cohen. Then they proceeded to add world-class musical spirits Jerry Douglas, Steve Conn, Tony Harrell, Jim Hoke and more, to see what else might spring forth. Boing, Boing, Boing, and away they all went! Although Shimabukuro is often called the Jimi Hendrix of the uke, I hear much wider influences on this outing. Those who prefer the dominant tone of the uke on Jake’s earlier albums might not embrace some of the places all these incredible players visit, but you have to give them credit. These cats know how to stretch out.

Tracks that jumped out for me were Shimabukuro’s originals: the breezy title track, with its “Boys Of Summer” feel, the sizzler “Panagram,” and the magnificent “Mahalo John Wayne” that would be perfect in the next great Western film Hollywood might make. There are three live bonus tracks. A funky soulful groove is laid down on Bill Withers’ “Use Me,” the crowd-pleaser “Dragon,” and the closer, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” that has a baker’s dozen minutes of Shimabukuro’s weeping and sweeping uke. Crank it up and you will make George Harrison and Roy Smeck smile somewhere over that rainbow.

­—Ken Spooner