Update: 2006 Ukulele Festival of Northern California

May 1st, 2006

So, last Sunday I attended the 13th annual Ukulele Festival of Northern California in Hayward. Although the ukulele is at the center of the festival, it’s really more of a Hawaiian culture festival, and includes music, dance, food and booths selling Hawaiian crafts. As with our NAMM show posts, Patrick Ford was on hand to take these photos.

I got to meet a few FJ readers, including Gary Peare of Ukulelia. (That’s him on the right.)

Although they weren’t for sale, these quilts were on display and showed some nice island imagery.

Chris Kamaka, that’s him in the purple shirt, was there with some of the ukes he and his crew make in Hawaii. They brought a bunch of parts, along with some completed instruments, so you could see how their instruments are put together. Chris is also a bass player and performed with his group.

Some of the other builders there included Tony Graziano, who had some lovely sunburst ukes on display.

Tiki King looked resplendent in his fez and had some nice looking ukes to go along with his tikis.

Ken Potts had a few instruments there and a very elegant coffin-style case.

And Mike DaSilva had some good sounding pineapple-shaped ukes made from bamboo as well as a very nice 3K-style concert uke.

Mike also had an 1890’s Jose do Espirito Santo uke on display, which was very exciting to see. Santo, along with Nunes and Dias, built some of the fisrt ukuleles in Hawaii.

Mike offers courses in ukulele building and he had the work of some his students on display, all of whom built reproductions of the Santo. The instruments are smaller than a modern soprano uke, but they are are surprisingly loud and sweet sounding. Can you pick out the original from the copies? Mike is also thinking of offering a Santo replica of his own for sale.

There were a number of jam sessions. I played in this one, which included folks like Al Dodge, that’s him with the white face Gibson A-3 mandolin and Robert Armstrong, who is playing a National plectrum in this photo. And yes, that is a bass banjo, which was made by Glenn Jordan, the guy playing it. Oh, and that’s me with the archtop guitar and the National Reso-Phonic Guitars cap.-MJS

Entry Filed under: Ukulele, Festivals