In 2001 Bill Tapia took one of his guitars to a Southern California music shop to get it fixed. A woman was buying a ukulele, and Mr. Tapia asked to see it. He began playing it, masterfully, with a distinctive jazz inflection.
“Hey, who are you?” the store’s owner asked.
If Mr. Tapia could have seen the future, he might have answered, “Duke of Uke,” the title of an album he recorded in 2005 at the age of 97. But at the time, he knew only that he was sad that his daughter and wife had recently died in quick succession, and that playing the ukulele felt good.
Mr. Tapia, who died on Dec. 2 at the age of 103, first played the instrument as an 8-year-old street musician, then went on to become one of Hawaii’s premier young ukulele players in the 1920s and ’30s. But after World War II he switched to the guitar to get jobs playing jazz, his favorite kind of music, gave away his ukuleles and for a half-century had almost nothing to do with the instrument that had defined his youth and middle age.
Then something astonishing happened: Mr. Tapia was “discovered” as a ukulele virtuoso at a time when the instrument was having a resurgence of popularity. He became a ukulele star, twice making the Top 10 on the jazz charts, wowing concertgoers by playing the ukulele behind his head à la Jimi Hendrix, and making three albums — one of which honored his 100th birthday. He was elected to the Ukulele Hall of Fame.
“Bill Tapia has been involved with the ukulele, jazz and Hawaiian music perhaps longer than any other living person,” the Hall of Fame said when it inducted him.
by Douglas Martin, NY Times | Read more:
