Considering the intense amount of Hawaiian bred and based musical excitement on Ho Ihi, legendary drummer Noel Okimoto’s first album in over 20 years, a casual listener might expect an immersion into the joyful, laid back traditional sounds of the Islands.
Though Abe Lagrimas, Jr., one of the members of the powerhouse, improv-happy septet here – plays a little ukulele as a complement to his burning vibes soloing, it’s a stylistically diverse, jamming jazz album through and through. For all the eclectic, perapatetic magic stirred up by Okimoto, Lagrimas, Dean Taba (bass), Tommy James (keyboards), Haru Takauchi (guitars), DeShannon Higa (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Allen Won (saxophones/flutes), fans of everything from Art Blakeyesque hard bop (“Up Syndrome”) and whimsical jazzy blues-funk (the irrepressible “Braying”) to high spirited Cuban songo music (the rambunctious “Longest Day”) should shout out a massive “Mahalo!”
The phrase Ho Ihi translates to “treating with reverence and respect,” and these as these cats swing, sway, strut, bounce and bray (to riff on that crafty title) by honoring a variety of American and global jazz traditions while taking the pieces to adventurous realms driven by their deeply intuitive, conversational playing.
Along the way, Okimoto and company pay specific respect to famed altoist Gabe Baltazar, a Stan Kenton alum who spent much time in Hawaii and inspired Okimoto (the hypnotic, fast grooving vibes-driven “Karing Karing”) and Wayne Shorter by way of the tenderly lyrical “Wayne(ing) Days.”
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