‘Huliau’
Ho‘okena
(Ho‘omau Music)
Louis "Moon" Kauakahi writes in the liner notes of Ho‘okena’s newly released 11th album that the title can be translated three ways: "past recollection," "a turning point" and "a time of change." All three translations apply.
The album is the first for the group since the departure of founding member Manu Boyd, and thus marks both a time of change and a turning point. Boyd, William "Ama" Aarona, Horace Dudoit III, Bozo Hanohano and Glen Smith founded Ho‘okena in 1989; the group’s first album — "Thirst Quencher!" — won three Na Hoku Hanohano Awards in 1990. Hanohano left shortly afterward and Ho‘okena was a quartet until Chris Kamaka joined the lineup in 1999. The group downsized to four a second time when Aarona departed in 2003. With Boyd’s departure earlier this year, Ho‘okena is performing and recording as a trio for the first time.
The third meaning of "huliau," "past recollection," describes Ho‘okena’s direct links to a predecessor group, Kipona Leo Hawai‘i, that consisted of Aarona, Boyd, Dudoit and Kamaka.
Anyone discovering Ho‘okena with this album will enjoy the trio’s smooth vocal arrangements. Longtime fans will be impressed at the fullness Dudoit, Kamaka and Smith achieve with three voices.
The album is by design a hybrid. The presence of seven Christmas standards position it as a sequel to Ho‘okena’s 2001 Hoku-winning Christmas album, "Home for the Holidays," but four other selections depart from that format and show how well the trio does acoustic Hawaiian and hapa-haole music.
They honor the musical legacy of the Kalakaua Dynasty with their arrangements of "Koni Au" and "Nohea Mu‘olaulani," and recall the hapa-haole vocal groups of the mid-20th-century with "Jungle Rain," which showcases the group’s beautiful harmonizing.
A third Hawaiian-language song, "Wakinekona," written by Kauakahi, speaks of the experiences of Hawaiians today who live elsewhere.
www.hookena.com
"Wakinekona"
