If It Swings, It’s Music: The Autobiography of Hawai’i’s Gabe Baltazar, Jr. by Gabe Baltazar Jr. (review)

If you are asked what comes to mind when you think of Hawaiian music, your memory might pull forth a short list of songs, including “I Want to Go Back to My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii,” or the Hawaiian wedding song made famous in Elvis Presley’s movie Blue Hawaii. Hawaiians wrote neither one of these songs, nor are these songs reflective of Hawaiian music. Our fiftieth state may bring to mind traditional luau music for tourists, but it also has provided a fertile atmosphere for jazz and popular styles. Hawaii can be proud of a number of musical stars, and included among them would be saxophonist Gabe Baltazar Jr.

Baltazar was born in Hilo, Hawaii, on November 1, 1929, of mixed Filipino and Japanese heritage. His maternal Japanese grandparents mostly raised him while his musician father scuffled to make a living, often working for $1.50 a night. Baltazar’s childhood years were memorable and included witnessing the attack on Pearl Harbor, working in pineapple fields, and gradually absorbing his father’s love of music.

Theo Garneau chose an interesting path in the creation of this book. A musician and writer who performed with Baltazar, he began this work as a biography in 2004. As Baltazar grew enthusiastic about the project, his interviews with Garneau became the bulk of the text. Garneau eventually decided that his own voice should be excised from the book except for his creation of short, transitional passages written to mimic Baltazar’s diction. As Garneau notes, “One voice was calling for a biography, the other for an autobiography” (xiii). The result is a fascinating life story that would have profited from judicious editing of Baltazar’s over-inclusive recollections.

Like many jazz musicians, Baltazar’s first passion was to make his living simply playing music. He performed jazz when he could and became one of our most accomplished Asian American jazz artists. Along the way, Baltazar paid his rent and supported a family by playing anything from wind ensemble music with the Royal Hawaiian Band, to stripper music in L.A. dives, to cocktail piano in Little Tokyo restaurants. He aspired to play in a well-known swing band, and in 1960 he got the call from Stan Kenton, the most controversial big band leader. He became well known nationally and internationally through Kenton’s concerts and frequent recordings. Baltazar gained another kind of education that opened his eyes to something he had yet to experience: “When I first went to the South with Stan’s band . . . I went to the black toilet or the white toilet. I didn’t know the difference and they couldn’t figure me out anyway. I could pass for black or white. But what’s funny is that I didn’t know. Being from Hawaii we didn’t have that kind of stuff. We were very naïve on Jim Crow and all” (83).

The post-Kenton years found Baltazar in L.A. studios and playing for numerous television shows. He eventually returned to his homeland to reconnect with his roots and continue his musical growth in every conceivable gigging situation. “[I]t wasn’t jazz per se. . . . I was exposed to all kinds of music, that’s what I always tell young people who want to be musicians: Learn to play everything . . . because it’s all music, as long as it swings, and there are moments of swing in every kind of song” (177).

I believe this book will appeal to specific audiences, one being residents of Hawaii, who can take pride in the accomplishments of their famous son. A second audience is musicians like myself who find it necessary but also enjoyable to play any and every kind of music. A third audience may be scholars studying the work of Stan Kenton or...