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ALOHA WAITIKI FANS!
Updated Tuesday 7/13/2010
Visit our new cocktail blog The Cocktail Journal if you’re thirsty!
Great to meet so many of you at the Hukilau and Ohana: Luau At The Lake festivals we’ve attended this summer. We like putting faces to screennames just as much as putting back a Chee-Hoo Fizz or two. Here are some music and cocktail updates from the world o’ Okonkuluku …
WAITIKI 7 Ignites the Radio Dial!
Not only is our newest release New Sounds of Exotica holding steady at #6 on JazzWeek World, but 2009’s Adventures in Paradise is chartbound as well. Totally awesome to see TWO exotica albums on the charts and getting major airplay across North America. We are being spun in heavy rotation everywhere: on major market stations, syndicated shows, internet radio, indie stations, and your home tiki bar. To see how we stack up with other major world artists, visit The WAITIKI 7’s Facebook page and see our “Radio Charts” photo album. Thanks for your support and keep requesting The WAITIKI 7!
The album (CD or digital download) is now available at WAITIKI.com, Waitiki7.com, Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, and Napster!
Video: Harold Chang & The WAITIKI 7
Our “Sounds of Exotica Lounge” show back in April was a huge success, in large part to a collaboration with Harold Chang (former percussionist of the original Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman groups). Uncle Harold, as we call him, took some blazing solos on bongos, congas, bird callsâhallmarks of exotica that he and Augie Colon created back in the ’50s. Check out these two videos of Uncle Harold performing and soloing with us:
“Cave of Uldo” at Fresh CafĂ©
“Rendezvous in Okonkuluku” at Fresh CafĂ©
Our Chee-Hoo Fizz Cocktail Makes It To Paris
Belated congratulations and mahalos are in store for master bartender, mixology historian, and and TED presenter John Gertsen. Johnâwho has championed tiki mixology in Boston through weekly Tiki Sundays at his bar Drinkâtraveled to Paris last month for the 2010 international Cocktails Spirits expo. John spoke about the Boston cocktail revival, the success of Drink, and the rise of home mixologists in America; to which he demo’d two cocktails, one of which was Randy Wong’s Chee-Hoo Fizz, a tiki-style fizz based on the classic Japanese cocktail. Our sincere thanks to John for including a tiki drink in his presentation!
Check out excerpts of John’s presentation online at Viddler:
The Chee-Hoo Fizz segment starts around 12:15, but really you should watch the whole thing!
More Praise for New Sounds of Exotica
“If WAITIKI 7 doesn’t appear on every episode of Hawaii Five-O or score a residency in Waikiki, I’ll be disappointed.”âGiant Robot #66
“The septet’s gorgeous melodies do more than renew a bygone genre. Its radiant brand of exotica crosses into Latin jazz with just as much poise and dexterity, often melding the two.”âALARM Magazine
“Four Stars” âChuck Campbell, Scripps Howard News Service
Video: Hawaii Music Award Presentation
Music Foundation of Hawai’i sent executive producer Johnny Kai to present The WAITIKI 7 with an award for Exotica Album of the Year for “Adventures in Paradise,” which we released last August. As a token of our appreciation, we performed the venerable hit “Quiet Village.”
See us getting the award, and hear Quiet Village:
Introducing WAITIKI’s Kahiki Serenaders: Vintage ’20s-’30s Hawaiian & Hapa-Haole Music Meets The Sound of Exotica.
THE KAHIKI SERENADERS are the newest group to be added to our award-winning and internationally-acclaimed artist roster. The Kahiki Serenaders bring back the music of Hawaii’s golden age, when transpacific steamships docked at Aloha Tower and passengers were greeted by the Boat Day wahine of downtown Honolulu.
Paying deep respect to the classic hapa-haole tunes (songs with primarily English lyrics, set to Hawaiian melodies and jazz harmonies) of Sol Hoopii, Andrew Aiona, and early Gabby Pahinuiâas well as songs by R. Alex Anderson, Harry Owens, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and othersâThe Kahiki Serenaders set sail on their own course with a stellar line-up: Greg ParĂ©, vibes; Rusty Scott, piano; Keala Kaumeheiwa, upright bass; and Drank Sumatra, drums.
Check them out and “Like” them on their Facebook Page! An internet-only album is planned, so stay tuned…
From the WAITIKI Cocktail Journal
The first two of this month’s cocktail recipes come from the Room Bar we hosted at Ohana a few weeks ago. Our room featured Cape Verdean Grogue, which is similar to Martinique agricole rums in taste and distillation process. We highlighted two such grogues in our recipes, the Nova (unaged) and the Velha (aged), both from the distillary Santo Antao. We get our grogues from Jerry’s Liquors in Somerville, MA. If you can’t find grogue in your hometown, try a Rhum Barbancourt. (Substitute the Barbancourt white for the Nova and the 3-star for the Velha). All recipes here created by WAITIKI mixologist Randy Wong.
ORCHARD DE PAĂL
(PaĂșl is the village where Santo Antao grogues are distilled). 1.5 oz Santo Antao Nova
0.5 oz Lillet
0.5 oz Chambord
0.5 oz fresh oj
0.5 oz fresh grapefruit juice
0.5 oz fresh lime juice
Shake, double strain, serve over crushed ice in a DOF. Garnish with a Luxardo marasca cherry on a toothpick and smile!
GROGUE DRY TAI
1.0 oz Santo Antao Velha
1.0 oz Lemon Hart 80
1.0 oz Orgeat (we used Ferrara)
.75 oz fresh lime juice
.50 oz curacao
Shake, double strain, serve “up” in a chilled cocktail glass.
This last recipe began life as a virgin (non-alcoholic) drink, perfect as a summertime cooler or when you return from a tiki festival with 3 pounds too many limes!
OLD SPICE COCKTAIL
2.0 oz. fresh lime juice
0.5 oz. cardamom simple syrup
0.5 oz. grenadine
1 bar spoon table sugar
Dash Angostura bitters
Shake & strain into a DOF glass with crushed ice. Fill to top with soda, add bitters and swizzle. To make the cardamom simple syrup: Muddle 1/4 c. cardamom in a sauce pan and toast lightly. Add 1 c. water and 1 lb. sugar; stir over low heat and let cool.
For an alcoholic version, add 0.5 oz. allspice dram to the recipe. Mahalo to Cleve and Brynn for helping hone this recipe last night!
“Loaded with virtuoso talent” âMark Holston, JAZZIZ
The Waitiki 7’s Adventures in Paradise is featured in “Prelude” section of the print edition of JAZZIZ Winter 2010!
The Waitiki 7, a born-in-Honolulu ensemble loaded with virtuoso talent, updates the classic exotica mood on Adventures in Paradise (Pass Out)âa 13-track excursion that pays respect to the venerable music’s roots while charting its own distinctive course . . . The contributions of woodwind player Tim Mayer, trombonist Mike Dease and violinist Helen Liu provide Waitiki 7 with substantial improvisiational firepower. Laka, the Hawaiian goddess of song and dance, should be smiling.âMark Holston
Download the full review as a PDF
“This is the band to beat”
âNate Chinen, of the NY Times, on his blog
Nate Chinen, who was born and raised in Honolulu, is no stranger to exotica or its musiciansâhe studied drums with Harold Chang, gigged with many of the Islands’ finest jazzers, and wrote remembrances of Arthur Lyman when Lyman passed away. He’s now an esteemed jazz critic, known for his writings for the New York Times, JazzTimes, and Village Voice.
… the band, which also includes pianist Zaccai Curtis and percussionist Lopaka Colon, is on the right track with Adventures in Paradise released last month. The music reflects a firm grounding in Hawaiian culture, and a real grasp of this genreâs practices. (Colonâs father was the revered percussionist Augie Colon, a former member of Dennyâs group; he appears on that recording of âQuiet Village.â) … If thereâs room for a postmillennial exotica revival, this is the band to beat.
Video: Hawaii Music Award Presentation
Music Foundation of Hawai’i sent executive producer Johnny Kai to present The WAITIKI 7 with an award for Exotica Album of the Year for “Adventures in Paradise,” which we released last August. As a token of our appreciation, we performed the venerable hit “Quiet Village.”
See us getting the award, and hear Quiet Village at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI7eUsG9M00
See You at Tiki Oasis!
If you’re hankerin for some WAITIKI in LP, CD, comic book, or butter (yes! the fruit butters!)-form, stop by our booth at this summer’s Tiki Oasis, August 19-22. We’ll be sharing a table with the legendary Richard Cheese, who also has a new tiki album out. Stop by and say okonkuluku!
“Intoxicating” — Peter Hund, GoodNewMusic.com
[The Waitiki 7] is an exotica jam band that updates the genre by augmenting the requisite vibraphone with plenty of sax and violin and often employing dead-serious jazz improvisation.
“Looking backward while moving forward” — Audiophile Audition
Audiophile Audition published a review yesterday of Adventures in Paradise. AA focuses on recordings that would be of interest to audiophiles, collectors, surround sound (music-related), and hi-res disc formatâthat they even considered us for inclusion is a great testament to our production values; not to mention a â â â â review!
Those who imagine the music made famous by Martin Denny and others has grown fallow or inert will think differently after sitting back and listening . . .
Adventures in Paradise is modeled upon the tranquil and relaxing exotica blueprint but The Waitiki 7 has built a different kind of tiki structure, assisted in measure by the members’ disparate training, experience and education. A realization of experimentation and advancement within a precisely coded genre gives Adventures in Paradise a context that places it in a unique position: looking backward while moving forward. âDoug Simpson
A fantastic review from Mother Jones magazine:
Fire up the tiki torches. Break out the umbrella drinks. The debut of Hawaii’s Waitiki 7 harks back a half-century to the golden age of exotica, when lounge-music giants like Martin Denny walked the Earth . . . A cover of jazz great Lee Morgan’s “Totem Pole” showcases a mesmerizing sax-trumpet [sic] dialogue, while the sleek violin of “Mood Indigo” would please Duke Ellington himself . . . âJon Young, Sept. 2009
