Island Mele: Na Palapalai reunites with double-disc album ‘Back to the Patch’

“BACK TO THE PATCH”

Na Palapalai (Kuana Torres Kahele)

This long-hoped for reunion album by Na Palapalai is welcome indeed, and lives up to fans’ expectations.

The trio formed in 2001, when Kaeo Costa joined Kuana Torres Kahele and Kehau Tamure, shortly after Kahele and Tamure ended a musical relationship with Akoni Malacas. Kahele, Tamure and Malacas had come to Waikiki from their hometown, Hilo, in search of fame and fortune, but although they made beautiful music together as Akoni and Da Palapalai Patch, the partnership ended after one critically acclaimed album.

Costa, Kahele and Tamure built on that foundation with almost immediate success. Na Palapalai’s high-energy approach to traditional Hawaiian music and its tight-knit falsetto harmonies took the trio from playing local bars to multiple Na Hoku Hanohano Awards.

Na Palapalai had won six Hoku Awards by the time Costa left to pursue other interests in 2006, after the release of the trio’s third album, “Ka Pua Hae Hawaii.”

Kahele and Tamure recorded the next Na Palapalai album, “Nanea,” as a duo in 2009. Two more personnel changes followed, and Kahele partnered with Ioane Burns to record a final Na Palapalai album, “Ha‘a,” in 2012.

By that time, Kahele had a parallel career as a solo artist — the seventh album in his unprecedented Music for the Hawaiian Islands series was released earlier this year.

Two years ago, however, a reunion show at the end of 2017 brought the original Na Palapalai trio back together. The release of a “live” album early in 2018 stoked the demand for more. And with two sold-out Labor Day weekend concerts at the Hawaiian Theatre, the next logical step was recording a new studio album.

This is it. With the opening bars of the first song, Kahele, Tamure and Costa bring us all right “Back to the Patch.”

Amid all the superb falsetto harmonizing, several outliers illuminate other facets of the trio’s repertoire.

A rollicking revival of “Lepe ‘Ula ‘Ula,” sung partially in the trio’s lower-register voices, is a knock-out.

“Straight From Hawai‘i To You” recalls the musical fantasies of the Territorial Era and evokes memories of the Hawaiian vocal groups of the 1950s and early 1960s.

“Sacrifice,” originally a hit for Elton John in 1989, shows their enjoyment of modern mainstream pop.

Aaron Sala (piano), Abe Lagrimas (vibes) and Casey Olsen (steel guitar) add gorgeous instrumental embellishments along the way.

The trio complete this marvelous reunion album with an illustrated 20-page booklet providing the poetic Hawaiian lyrics and English translations. Both are essential. A note explaining how the trio approaches the responsibility of sharing lyrics and translations is also relevant.

Several monster talents have emerged in Hawaiian music since the last album by the original Na Palapalai trio was released, but “Back to the Patch” seems certain to be a major contender at the Hokus in 2020.

Visit kuanatorreskahele.com.