Jazz Articles about Noel Okimoto

About Noel Okimoto

Album Review

Honolulu-born Noel Okimoto has been playing drums professionally since he was eleven years old. He has learned over the years to supervise the drum kit with equanimity and deference, a standard that Okimoto's octet endorses when approaching the music on his second album as a leader, Ho'ihi (ho-ee-hee), a Hawaiian phrase that translates roughly into “treat with reverence and respect." While Okimoto is a proud son of the Islands, those who are searching for Hawaiian-inspired themes will ...

Album Review

Doug MacDonald: Live in Hawaii

Read "Live in Hawaii" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 24, 2021

Here is a guitar-led quartet with a couple of fresh angles. First, instead of using a piano, guitarist Doug MacDonald has enlisted vibraphonist Noel Okimoto to provide the harmonic counterpoint; and second, Philadelphia-born MacDonald has temporarily forsaken his decades-long base in Southern California to return “home" to Hawaii, where he began his professional career performing with Trummy Young, Gabe Baltazar and Del Courtney. What is not new but nonetheless welcome is MacDonald's superior command of his instrument, ...