The Kamehameha Alumni Glee Club In Concert

 

Ke Kali Nei Au

The Kamehameha Aluminums Glee Club

In Concert

Producer & Sound Engineer: Don McDiarmid, Jr.

Liner Notes by Jean Sullivan

Photos by Ron Adams

Cover by Norma Chester

Narrator: Ed Michelman (KTRG Radio, Honolulu

Translations & Historical data from the files of Kamehameha Schools, courtesy of Mrs. Blossom Neary

Mario song & actions courtesy of the files of Tommy Taurima, of the Church College of Laie

Recorded at Roosevelt Auditorium

Record in Hawaii by Hula Records H-504

First Tenors: 

Donald S. Y. Chang

Charles B. Kane

Albert K. J. Kekoa

George H. Kekoolani, Jr.

Norman J. Palenapa

Louis K. Pinho

Second Tenors:

David T. Fontaine

Sam N. Guerrero

Daniel Nahuina

Roy Oness

Larry W. L. Wong

John Young

Baritones:

Albert Ah Loy

Easter J. Doyle

William T. Grieg

Samuel K. Kamaka

Rudy Nahunina

Earl S. Robinson

Robert Tirrell

Basses:

David K. Alama

William K. Amona

Lawrence K. Asing, Jr.

Alan P. Baptist

Kenneth Batong

Clifford D. Carpenter

Agenhart K. Ellis

Gregory C. Goetz

Daniel P. Hano, Jr.

Christopher G. Hong

John Mahunalii

Benjamin K. Meyer

Wally K. Tirrell

Dorothy Kahananui Gillett - Director of the Glee Club, she is an instructor of music at the University of Hawaii, and is much in demand to direct music education convention workshops on the mainland. Daughter of Mrs. Dorothy Kahananul, she was educated at Kamehameha, and University of Hawaii and Ohio State; and she has taught on Molokai and at Kamehameha. She and her husband Milton, are the parents of a son and a daughter.

From the back cover: Group singing is an old Hawaiian custom, whether impromptu at a party or organized in a glee club... of which there are dozens in the Islands. The most famous is the Kamehameha Alumni Glee Club. Although this great group is one of the youngest... dating only from 1954... it inherits a much older tradition.

The private schools founded by the last of the Kamehameha, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, are for boys and girls of Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian descent. The conventional curriculum is enriched by the teaching of the Hawaiian things that are the students' special heritage... among them, the authentic style of Hawaiian glee club singing for which the youngsters are renowned.

The Kamehameha Alumni Glee Club was formed by graduates of the School for Boys, who wished to continue their enjoyment of this way of singing, and to perpetuate this kind of music. It is one of the few major performing units in Hawaii whose repertoire is exclusively Polynesian.

In only one sense are these men not professional... they do not earn their living by singing. Income of the group goes to build a scholarship fund that futures the musical education of other Kamehameha graduates. The first recipient of one of their scholarships was James Kaina, whose voice is heard on this album in "Ke Kali Nei Au."

A wide range of age and occupation is represented in the Glee Club. The men graduated from "Kam" between '32 and '57. The membership includes architects, an Oahu Prison guard, a university student, an electronics technician, lawyers (one of whom is a Honolulu City Councilman), welders, a credit manager, the ukulele maker, a telephone lineman... and representatives of other varied occupations.

Visually, they come on like a Broadway show. Their dancing of ancient Hawaiian chants and Maori haas brings down any house... in Waikiki hotels for visitors... at their annual concerts for the home folk... on their neighbor island tours... and on TV.

There is strength and sweetness... virility and polish... challenge and charm... rascality and nostalgia... and to spare... in this symphony of voices, which needs no other instrument to complete it.

It is a group that is at once typical, and unique... the Kamehameha Alumni Glee Club.

For You A Lei

Ku'u Lei Awapuhi

Ku'u Pua Mae Ole

Kona Kai 'Opua

Lei Mokihana

Ka 'Ililauokekoa

Ke Kali Nei Au

Kamehameha March

Hilo Au

Hole Waimea

Waipio

Rimu

Tahi Nel Taru Kino

Ka Mate

Beyond The Reef

Aloha 'Oe