My Life

When your claim to fame is being a ukulele virtuoso, your obvious move is going to be the show-offy novelty piece: an unamplified version of "Eruption," say, or a heavy metal arrangement of "Flight of the Bumblebee." It's very much to Jake Shimabukuro's credit that he doesn't go anywhere near that kind of obvious pandering on this brief but completely charming EP. Instead, he takes six songs by a wide variety of artists (Judy Garland, Cyndi Lauper, two by the Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, even Led Zeppelin) and gives them quiet, tasteful arrangements that draw much more attention to his musicianship and to the songs themselves than they do to the fact that he's playing a ukulele. His setting of "Time After Time" is both the most fully arranged and the least interesting of the six tracks; his solo performances of Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" is quietly brilliant, as is his similar take on the Beatles' "Here, There, and Everywhere" and McLachlan's "Ice Cream." On the title track, another famous Beatles song, he's accompanied by electric bass and the effect is perfect. Very highly recommended.