Jack de Mello Plays The Music of Kui Lee [1966]

Music of Polynesia Inc. MP-1000 

Jack de Mello recorded close to 160 albums of all types of music, including almost 500 Hawaiian songs. These songs recorded in the biggest and best studios around the world gave Hawaiian music a new identity. Decca Studios in London, Barclay Studios in Paris, RCA in Rome, major studios in Hollywood, New York, Chicago all became Jack’s playground and introduced the world’s music business to a category of music that they only heard in scratchy radio broadcasts from Waikiki Beach on Saturday mornings. He made Hawaiian music viable to a musical world who felt it primitive at best. The London Philharmonic, the Tokyo Symphony, the Victor Concert Orchestra, and the NHK Orchestra were among those who marveled at what was traditional Hawaiian music arranged by what was quickly becoming one of the masters of Hawaiian music. Victor Records of Japan recognized Jack’s talent and recruited him to produce 21 albums featuring the Victor Pops Orchestra over an eleven-year partnership.

 Jack’s talents went beyond his love for Hawaiian music. Hanna Barbera contracted Jack to compose and orchestrate music for the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Magilla Gorilla, Top Kat, and Ricochet Rabbit. Jack was recording all of this while developing the talents of Emma Veary, Nina Keali’iwahamana, Marlene Sai -  most of Hawai’i’s recognized talents in the ’50s and ’60s. As the Hawaiian cultural renaissance was born in the late ’60s, early ’70s, Jack was discovering a new generation of musical talents; The Beamers, The Brothers Cazimero, Jon and Randy, Booga Booga. Every one of Jack’s discoveries was to shape Hawaiian music in their own way. Jack demanded that his proteges be musically educated and that included his son, Jon, and he always demanded that they be passionate about what they were doing, whether it was composing, arranging, playing or singing. A great tribute to Jack is that all of his artists continue to work in the field of music and credit Jack and the habits he instilled in them with their decades-long success story.  [Courtesy last.fm]

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The Lenny Bruce of Hawaii -- if more benign and loved -- Kui Lee died young of cancer, leaving behind a legacy of poetry and song that ushered in a hip, new Hawaii. Don Ho popularized and made hits out of many of his songs. Jack de Mello created a delightful, very strange 3-LP box tribute including narrative script by Robert Maxwell, then-editor of the Honolulu Beacon. 

Kuiokalani Lee was born July 31, 1932, in Shanghai, China to parents Billy and Ethel Lee, both entertainers themselves; he was brought to Hawaii at age five. First entering show business as a knife dancer and choreographer, he moved to New York, where in seven years he met and married Nani Naone and had four children. Returning to Hawaii in the early 1960s, Lee learned to sing and compose and soon formed his own group. Opening at Kanaka Pete's in Maui, he went on the Kalia Gardens, Queen's Surf, and ultimately the Waikiki Shell in 1966. 

The highlight of his final appearance, on October 18 of Aloha Week, was his wife's performance of his last composition, "The Intangible Dream Came True." However, cancer was discovered shortly afterward, and Lee died on Dec. 3, 1966, at Guadalajara Hospital in Tijuana, Mexico. He was buried at sea off Waikiki six days later. 

Tracklist:
01 I'll Remember You
02 One Paddle, Two Paddle
03 All I Want To Do
04 The Days of My Youth
05 Ain't No Big Thing
06 Go To Him
07 Lahainaluna
08 Rain, Rain Go Away
09 Kanaka Pete
10 She's Gone Again
11 Going Home
12 No Other Song