Jake Shimabukuro

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SPOTLIGHT ARTIST OF THE MONTH!

Fresh off his album Jake & Friends, featur​ing collaborations with ​everyone from Willie Nelson, Bette Midler, Jimmy Buffett, ​and Michael McDonald ​to Ziggy Marley, Warren Haynes, Billy Strings and many more,  Hawai’i-born Jake Shimabukuro ​returns to the stage of The Ridgefield Playhouse.  Considered one of the most famous ‘ukulele players in the world,  Jake has proven that there isn’t a style of music that he can’t master.  His music combines elements of jazz, blues, funk, rock, bluegrass, classical, folk, and flamenco.  Shimabukuro became famous internationally in 2006, when a video of him playing a virtuosic rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was posted on YouTube without his knowledge and became one of the first viral videos on that site. Since then he’s released numerous albums, written many original compositions, including the entire soundtracks to two Japanese films, Hula Girls (2007) and Saidoweizu (2009), and was the subject of an award-winning documentary released in 2012 tracking his life, career, and music, titled Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings.  He has basically reinvented the applications for this tiny, under-appreciated four-string instrument, causing many to call him “the Jimi Hendrix of the ‘ukulele.”

Joining Jake on tour is Jackson Waldhoff, a bass player from Honolulu, Hawai’i. He grew up in Kyoto, Japan; moved to Hawai’i in 2010. Waldhoff started playing guitar and bass as a way to make friends while learning English. In 2018, Waldhoff graduated from audio engineering school and worked as an audio engineer with Jake Shimabukuro on several projects, including “Trio,” “Jake & Friends”, and a track for Alan Parsons. Jackson Waldhoff and Jake Shimabukuro started touring together in 2018, and perform concerts around the world.