Kaapana Offers Warm Slack Key Guitar Tunes

Led Kaapana’s one-nighter at McCabe’s on Sunday night was a friendly, informal opportunity to hear one of the most talented members of the current generation of Hawaiian slack key guitar players. The performance, especially the duets with steel guitarist Bob Brozman, retained the easygoing, familial atmosphere that is an essential characteristic of Hawaiian music.

Slack key is a method of tuning the instrument’s strings to an open chord, creating the potential for rich harmonic strumming. And, of course, the sliding sounds of the steel guitar style rely upon similar tunings. Elements of the technique aside, the music was melodic and accessible. Kaapana’s vocals floated with the Hawaiian style’s rich vibrato, and his guitar playing retained the elements of tradition while occasionally tossing in some blues-tinged twists and turns.

But the evening’s most appealing moments were generated by the obvious musical friendship between Kaapana and Brozman. Seasoning everything he played with whimsical commentary (“When I told my parents I wanted to be a musician when I grew up, they said I had to pick one or the other”), Brozman also played some searing steel guitar lines, his surging rhythmic energy balanced perfectly by Kaapana’s warm harmonies.