UkeTube

Here is a description you don't hear every day: Jake Shimabukuro is a spellbinding solo ukulele player.

On his forthcoming concert CD "Live," he unleashes a frothy, sonic spray of colors and churning rhythms from his uke -- the runt of the litter of American stringed instruments.

He seems to be everywhere at once on his original composition "Me & Shirley T." -- about the night he drank too many Shirley Temples -- hop-scotching between lead and rhythm lines without overdubs before banging out a bit of percussion for good measure. A wonderfully propulsive meld of two more originals, "Orange World" and "Wes on Four," make moot any reservations that he's resorting to gimmickry and is merely a novelty act.

Sure, entertainment probably trumps lasting enrichment as the 32-year-old flashes a minute's worth of Bach ("Two-Part Invention No. 4 in D Minor") and delves into more extensive covers of Chick Corea ("Spain") and Michael Jackson ("Thriller"). Shimabukuro wouldn't have it any other way.

"People often ask me what I think I've contributed to the instrument," he said by phone last week from his home in Hawaii. "For me, it wasn't so much technique, or the songs I play, because you can play Jimi Hendrix on a kazoo just humming out the melody. My vision is for it to be a very intense, high-energy instrument, getting people excited like at a rock concert or sporting event."

Scratch a little beneath that would-be-rock-star veneer, however, and you find someone who is very serious about technique. "I'm always working on the basics," he concedes. "Like just trying to hold a single chord, strum a groove, or just make sure that there is a good reason for every time my hand touches the instrument.

"When you have only four strings to play with, you have to put a lot of thought into what you can do with every string, the way a person without a lot in his checking account figures out how to spend money. I trust my ear to tell me, 'OK, what are the notes I really need in there?' "

In fact, his commercial breakthrough came when someone anonymously posted a video on YouTube of him playing the Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."

Love at first uke

So how did a fifth-generation Okinawan-American become the ukulele's biggest star since the halcyon kitsch of '60s star Tiny Tim?

He became entranced by the instrument at age 4, when his mother gave him his first uke. He never really wanted to play anything else.

In Hawaii's indigenous music scene, the ukulele serves a crucial rhythmic function. After playing in a few traditional groups, Shimabukuro was hired by Hawaii's tourism board to market the islands to people in Japan, further raising his profile. But it was the YouTube phenomenon that really put him over the top.

It was Buffett's guitarist, Mac MacAnally, who proposed he do a solo ukulele album. Even in group settings, Shimabukuro had always set aside an interlude for a few solo numbers. But what really prompted him to act on MacAnally's suggestion was memories of Bill Cosby's classic comedy routines. "I remember watching his television special as a kid, thinking, 'This man can sit on a stool with just a microphone and keep everyone entertained.' When I decided to go solo, I remembered that and thought, 'I'll have a mike and my ukulele.'"

"Live" was released Monday in Hawaii — as part of a promotion with the new Target stores there — but won't be released in the rest of the States until April 14.

As a performer, Shimbakuro says he works hard to avoid repetition. "I'm always trying to break from old habits. You pick up the instrument and a little lick from muscle memory — I'm trying to avoid that. I want to play exactly what I am thinking or feeling at the time. It is one of the hardest things to do but when you can do it, the music sounds so much more sincere.