 Homaika Ako and welcome to Ukulele Songs of Hawaii. I'm your host, Walter Kavaya. Today's episode is titled, A Tribute to Hawaiian Music Icon, Jenoa Keabe, and joining me to share and talk sorry about this musical legend is her granddaughter, Pomaika Ilayman. Aloha Pomae. Aloha Mai. Thank you for being here. Let me just share a little bit about you with our viewers. Pomaika Ilayman is a Hawaiian music entertainer, educator, and administrator, event producer, and former Mrs. Hawaii 2016. She is a graduate of Punahou School and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where she obtained her bachelor's in economics. She's married to Shane Ilayman, owner of Hawaii Elite Athletic Training, and together they have four children between the ages of 10 and 15. Pomaika Ilayman enjoys working with youth in the Hawaiian-focused charter and Hawaiian language immersion schools. She served as a director for the annual Homao Benefit, the only event to gather all the Hawaiian language immersion schools on Oahu and has done this for the past seven years. As a descendant of a Hawaiian music legend, Pomaika Ilayman continues to pave her own path while perpetuating the legacy left behind by her beloved grandmother and everyone's favorite auntie, Jeno Keawe. Thank you so much for being here. I've really been looking forward to this and talking story. I just have fond memories of Grandma, you know. My wife and I were part of the Kahawano Lake Singers and every year we did the annual Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame at the Hawaii Theater. And I distinctly remember in that particular year that your grandmother was a recipient of being inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame. Sitting back with her, she was so sweet. She was everybody's grandma. She had reached that pinnacle in her life and in her musical career and all of the recognition that came to her was well-deserved. So I want to ask our engineer to maybe put up our first picture and we can start our journey in this conversation to talk about you, Poma, and everything that you've accomplished and what you're doing to continue Grandma's legacy. So there she is, yes. And gosh. She's so beautiful. She is beautiful. I mean, if you had to describe one thing, a feature about her, what would that be? For me, definitely her smile. Yeah, for sure. You cannot help but smile back every time she smiled at you and so. And then the next thing would be her eyes. Yes, her eyes basically said, I love you on their own. Up to the day that she passed I think that was something that I treasured was when she would look at me and tell me I love you. That's so nice to have that kind of connection with a grandmother and a granddaughter. So what are some of the earliest memories or recollections that you have of hearing your grandmother sing? Oh, ever since I can remember I just did a gig at a local bar in town and people ask me because I don't consume alcohol but I love to be around everyone who is having fun. Yes. Part of it being because I know that my grandma was performing in the bars when she was younger she would sell lays, drive during the day. Really? I didn't know that. She was a lay seller and she also drove and so at night she would take her gigs in the local bars and there were some fun times I hear and I'm so glad that they were able to catch one of those performances at Aloha Grill Live the very last performance that she had before they closed the record company Genoa Kiavi Records and I just love playing that album over and over and over because it's almost as if I was right there and to hear people in the background cheering and cooing and then when she's on the mic, you know she'll stop in the middle of a verse to invite people up to dance the hula I think it's that connection with our local community and our ohana that allows us to be able to go out into the world to share even more we have to have that with our people and whether it's in someone's backyard or in the bars so my earliest recollection in the bar was sleeping behind the speaker so my dad would bring me tag along and he would stay and listen to her perform with everybody but because I was so young I would get tired early so I would go right behind the speaker where the sound wasn't blasting in my ear but it was just enough that the vibrations helped me to go to sleep that reminds me because one of my students is Hanai Daughter her name is Mai Li Lu Ching she was a Hanai Daughter of Nona Beemer she created and she runs and so Mai Li has a daughter I think her name is Kupu and Kupu is I want to say 10, 11 years old but Kupu has Mai Li has taken her everywhere she's on and we were just commenting on that coming back and I truly believe that when a mother does or a father makes the effort to do that it's a lot easier to just leave it at home and go do your business but that extra effort consistently done is going to pay off big time benefits not just for the little girl like it did for you but it's going to pay off for the family and the mom later which I'm seeing in my daughter somebody told me she plays saxophone in the school band she taught herself how to play piano and guitar and she picked up the bass but her main instrument is the steel guitar which she's learned under Uncle Alan Akaka yeah and when she was when she was a baby that's exactly what happened is my husband was working later hours at the gym and then I was starting my gig right about the time he was finishing so there was a little like crossover I couldn't quite hand her off yet and he couldn't pick her up so I had to bring her with me to my gig in her car seat place her behind us on the stage because I couldn't ask the aunties or everybody else to watch her right so she's on the stage and I'm lucky that she was good enough of a baby that she never cried the music calmed her she just would sit there and observe she's listening to her mommy sing so she recognizes your Leo your voice the nice Leo yes so about when in your growing up years did you pick up an instrument I mean I know you said you've heard it was around you all the time but at what point in your life did you decide that this was something that you were going to definitely do it wasn't until my high school years that I learned that this would be something that I was going to take on as Kuliana when I was little my grandma always had an instrument available for every young Moopuna in the Halle so there was an ukulele available for us to pick up whenever we were ready she never forced it upon us but when we did pick it up she would take the time to sit with us to play and strum so one of the first songs I ever learned was a composition by Wendell Silva written in 1980 I want to say 6 or 7 but he wrote it as part of a competition a song competition for the Year of the Hawaiian and the title that year of the Year of the Hawaiian was Ho'olako Hawaii Unite Hawaii Unite when I learned that song I got to perform it with her for the first time she you know she brought me with her to a conference at Brigham Young University in Laie and I was about 6 years old when I performed that L.A and then you know I played and I danced hula with Antihui Park and then with Antihua Kale Kamau and then in my high school years I thought okay I'm going to be a hula director for the whole school media program and when I didn't get that position I said now what and I was encouraged by Dave Eldridge to audition as one of the musicians and so you know in my head I'm thinking okay they think that just because I'm the granddaughter of Jenoa Kyave that I should be able to sing Hawaiian music so I go and audition and the song that I auditioned with is a Danish club so I really liked that song at that time they played it a lot on the radio yes at that time and I you know I got the position of a musician and the first song they give me to perform two songs Pony Conjugation's Kabutia Omanua and Antilina's Opa oh easy so I listen to the recordings of those songs and I go oh cheese so I go home I get the lyrics I practice and Tutu comes out of her room and she says let me teach you let me show you how you know that was when she started working with me as a freshman that's when it began so like you said earlier the instruments were there but she never pushed and that's really the way to do things when you think about it in life for anything just when the time is right you'll know because they'll follow the path and the other part of it was that I really wanted to be a part of my school May Day program and so if that was the way to do it I had to learn how to sing these songs and play the instrument and so I went from jamming Ka'al Creator Boys with friends in the hallway to playing my grandma's music music so that's a leap yeah that is a leap and so I went forward with doing that throughout high school but it wasn't until middle of my junior year in high school that my grandma finally felt that I was ready to come and perform with her in public up until then it was okay you need to work on this you need to practice a little bit more and then finally mid-year in my junior year of high school I had the chance to travel with her to my auntie's Halau Hoike in Seattle, Washington that must have been wonderful though when you reflect back on that first moment that you got to step on stage and sing because you knew she, you know by that time you knew she was something more than just your grandmother to the rest of the world and so I'm sure there was some sense of Juliana that came upon you that you realized that and I would imagine that's harder because you're her granddaughter there's this expectation by the world that oh because you are you're going to be and so we'll talk more we're gonna go to a break in a few minutes but when we come back I'd like to explore that because I think a lot of us when we reach the Hawaiian music or other facets of life you know we can all experience I mean I grew up with in the shadows of Kahau on the lake and yeah it can be challenging all right everybody we are here with our guest in a Pomaika Ilayman granddaughter of legendary musical icon of traditional Hawaiian music auntie Janokiawe talking sorry with Pomaika Aloha y'all my name is Mitch Ewan I'm from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and I'm the host of Hawaii the state of clean energy we're on every Wednesday at four o'clock and we hope that we have interesting guests who talk to us about various energy things that are happening in Hawaii all the way from PV to windmills to hydrogen most of my heart electric buses so please dial in every Wednesday at four o'clock on Hawaii the state of clean energy Aloha Aloha I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough of Sister Power here at ThinkTech of IE and Sister Power is all about motivating, empowering, educating and inspiring all people and we have various subjects here Sister Power is here at ThinkTech every other Thursday at four p.m. again my name is Sharon Thomas Yarbrough host of Sister Power we look forward to seeing you if you have any questions feel free to contact me at sistersandpowerandkawaii at gmail.com look forward to chatting with you soon Aloha Aloha Maika Ko and welcome back from our break and we're here talking sorry with Pomaika Ilayman granddaughter Jeno Keave I'm going to ask Eric to put up our second picture I guess it would be there we go okay oh look at those I love for some reason I am drawn to black and white just because you know the era so tell us I think I know where grandma is that she's second from the left with her ukulele yes look how tall she is I didn't realize she was that tall as she got older she said she graciously got closer to the ground graciously got closer to the ground oh my goodness no you know what I love about that picture and I recognize anti-violet on the base was that I got to experience some of them there's also anti-abi in that picture but you know groups I wasn't even born but there were groups of all female yeah and that was common it wasn't it was much more common than it is today now it's men and you know I have to mention that you know when I was looking at the Nahoku listing the finalist ballot for this year the men category male vocalist huge the female like this and of those female maybe two or three maybe three are singing Hawaiian music you know when you go back to that era can you date that you know when that was I want to say that was the 50s 60s 50s and 60s yeah you know when I see her she just has that whip them kill they all do in fact you know but I grew up in that era and so I was it was common place for me to see all of these the Halikulani girls the women and they're powerful they're equal with the men and they could jam yeah they could carry on and I know in talking to your grandmother and I remember she played it was a place in Waikiki it was her you know that first album that came out Benny Rogers yes yes they were playing in Waikiki George Hammond and I would go see them but I cannot remember the place the name of the place and it's pretty much first when you first enter Waikiki um it was a well known nightclub where where you know they all played the name is escaping me too but you know what I'm talking about yeah I mean everybody all the locals used to go there because that's where it was happening um not club Polynesia not club Polynesia but anyway yeah um okay our next picture oh yeah look at her oh look and she labeled it right there Primo Gardens 1973 yes Uncle Peter Ahia who actually was one artist that recorded under her record label he did and I you know I remember Peter because when my wife and I were working on promotions with Hawaiian I remember we took this tour to Europe and the musicians were Peter Kekua, Fernandez, Manny Fernandez and myself and Peter he was a crack up he was crazy you see his hair I'm not speaking but one morning we all met for breakfast in the hotel that we're staying at and I guess he didn't he just came out and his hair was flat he was totally different but anyway a great musician he was such I loved his voice I loved his voice and I know he played often his uncle Val Cappellino was close with with Grandma and Val's um Val was married to Auntie Mommi Cappellino and she was one of Auntie Mikey's original dancers beautiful very stately alright Eric our next picture oh yeah okay more legends so we have Auntie on the left in the wheelchair is that Edith Mackenzie no that's Auntie Malia Craver oh sorry Malia Craver that's right and then Uncle George of course in his beautiful decked out purple and then I see isn't that Jeremy Hopkins mother grandmother that's his grandmother my grandma's oldest niece Auntie Mommi she's the first in that generation and then my dad is the youngest in that generation so Auntie Mommi's mother is my grandmother's older sister you see this is so typical conversation no matter what the subject is we somehow connecting the ohana discover gather and connect genealogy information okay hold us tell the story our next uh oh there you are yeah so that last picture was of us at the Waikiki Beach Marriott which was formerly the Hawaiian region hotel okay and when Tutu was performing there she started off in the lobby bar and then her crowd became so huge that they decided they were going to move the stage upstairs poolside on the third floor and so um that picture was that initial picture was of when she moved um when she passed in 2008 I had the honor of being you know taking her seat and so I got to be on stage and that's what the next picture is with Uncle Gary and we sat just like that in that order um Uncle Gary was always on my right with the base and then to my left was Auntie Mommi Kahavaiola on guitar and then on the far end is Alan Akaka on the steel guitar yeah so I carried on that same gig for another eight years before it ended in 2016 because we when I had my group my male trio myself um Jeff Teves and Henry Barrett we played at the Hawaiian region in the lobby bar mm-hmm yeah that was and that I do remember when grandma came down and played out there it was a good place to play they didn't realize Auntie Mona Wood is the one who recommended that we bring her in you know to provide you know Hawaiian music ambiance for the place and of course she knew who she was and said you need to have Genoa Kahavai here so what they didn't realize was how big her crowd would be every Thursday and then you know she's contracted to a certain time but always went over half an hour to an hour so the group that went on right after you know it would end up just kind of cruising just waiting and they didn't mind of course because they played until midnight after she got out I don't remember those hours but I'm sure they didn't mind out of respect and aloha for grandma before we throw up other pictures let's talk about you so you you're an entertainer you're a musician you're a producer of events I know you are with the Hawaiian immersion school tell us I mean how do you and still raising children and taking care of a husband how does that all work for you and managed to be Mrs. Hawaii 2016 and you still look like you could run for Mrs. Hawaii this year and win again thank you you know my life path has taken me so many different places and I think I've realized now at this point where I am that it's going in the same direction it's just that I'm making all these little tours along the way and although it may not be directly related to my path it's really helping me to understand more of why I'm you know why I'm walking and so the many things that I've done the you know the fitness competition the beauty pageant running a marathon you know all of that and then and then getting into the education field when my bachelor's in economics you know I love I love business and I love money I love we all love money but I love numbers accounting things and um so having a degree in economics means you can balance your checkbook perfectly right yeah I did and then I had a family and I realized that it's not that easy when you throw emotions into that factor so anyway it's really helped me to kind of you know develop myself into the woman that I am today to what is the word to speak be more eloquent in my words and to present myself better whereas before you know just throw my hair up in a messy bun and leave and go say aloha to people I can never imagine you throwing your hair up in a messy bun oh look at pictures of me 10 years ago so you know we all go through I think we all in our own way go through the same thing but you know we travel a path that we earmarked that's what we want to do and there are things that come that veer us off in a moment but I think about that I think it just broadens we may have started that path and that path may have been extremely narrow in terms of our experience but as we travel and we accept opportunities that might not necessarily be in our wheelhouse of experience but we accept it because you know it's going to just make us better and then the path gets broad and broad and at some point down the road perhaps now in your life or in the near future the pathway is going to be broad because of everything that you and I have experienced and I love that analogy because when the path is more broad I can bring more people along on this journey so that's becoming more of my pleasure in doing this I've made so many different connections that have helped me to continue to walk this path and also have my family there with me and it's not easy we're still facing obstacles but I can have a more clear vision and know that I don't have to stay in a narrow, narrow path I can do this a little bit it's been fun and you're being a great example as a mother to your children because they're watching every step you make they're going to be in your shoes one day talking about you and hope that tradition or that legacy and likewise they teach me a lot too Eric can we have another picture tell us about speaking of my family so this is a tradition that my grandmother made sure that we all were a part of every year and this is some years ago I can see my daughter this was right after my oldest was born but these graves are the graves in Kahana Valley when you turn on to Trout Farm Road you have to hike up into the mountain a little bit and my grandmother always took us there to my grandfather's parents and so we go up there to take care of those graves and we are one of the only families that do that there's a bunch of graves in that area but she always went up to clear and there's little graves around and when the tsunami happened in I think it was 63 that devastated Kahana Valley some of those victims are there in grade 2 so it's a good talking point there was an LDS church right there for a long time that just recently got demolished maybe about a few years ago so it's a good educational spot where we could ask my two stories or ask her questions and she would tell us stories of what happened in that valley I know that our time is running out and the images is from Kahana Valley and he has amazing stories that he tells about growing up there and the value of all of that so I'm interested Eric can we get our last picture you have there yeah okay so we're going to have to bring Paul Mike back because we've literally run out of time but I love this picture because everything she said about Tutu there it is that's her legacy tell me why you like that picture so much you know it's just her and her ukulele and her smile and you can see right into her eyes and they're not fancy no eyeliner no makeup nothing it's just her and that picture was taken actually when she received the National Endowment of the Arts recognition in Washington DC so you know that picture just reminds me of all the work that she's done and how she's recognized not just by myself and our family or the community but the world is recognizing her and you know it was someone who told me that your grandmother is a beacon of light and in the darkness that is just enveloping this whole entire world and working for those types of people who are spreading light and love and her music was how she shared her aloha and so it's my hope that I can do the same too and she set the example she set the bar and I'm constantly trying to live up to that well you're doing an excellent job and we appreciate you know everything that you your whole family and you know I have to agree with Pomei that you know even though Tutu is gone from us but her music lives on and as you know she said the times that we live in all of us are desirous for that light and that hope and when we reflect back or when we listen to you know Juno's music that's the kind of light thank you for having me thank you for tuning in for today's episode and as much as we miss hearing the live voice of Auntie Juno I want to thank Juno's granddaughter Pomei Ka'i Lyman who is doing such a wonderful job in seeing to it that her grandmother's musical legacy lives on again mahalo to you Pomei Ka'i, thank you for joining me I'm Walter Kovai, your host here at Ukulele Songs of Hawaii until next time take care everybody aloha no aloha