Avenue Vine

Judd will introduce beginners to this unusual instrument, learning its history and important artists. You will learn technique with basic chords and fingering, strumming techniques and various picking techniques. Students will listen to recordings, learn chords to specific songs, and perform the specific songs as a class.

The ukulele (pronounced ‘ooh-coo-lay-lay’) is considered unique to Hawaii and is ‘descended’ from instruments called machete (‘mah-shet’) and braguina (‘brag-eena’), brought by Portuguese immigrants in the late 1880s. Gradually the name shifted to ukulele—which is roughly translated as ‘jumping flea,’ a description of the players’ fingers skipping over the strings.

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You can catch Judd in action with his ukulele at his winery’s second annual Musical Bonanza on April 26 between noon and 4:00 p.m. (more at www.juddshill.com) or on June 26 at Lyman Park in St. Helena.

In 2005 Judd’s band, The Maikai Gents Featuring The Mysterious Miss Mauna Loa, released their first CD, The Wiki Wiki Grog Shop. The album consists of 16 vintage Hawaiian songs and can be purchased at www.mkgents.com. The songs are Hawaiian classics, mainly written between 1930 and 1960, in the style known as ‘hapa haole,’ a reference to their popularity with mainlanders. Some of the songs are slow and sentimental, some zippy and danceable---all evoke the romantic ideal of Hawaii in its golden age of tourism in the mid-twentieth century.

Judd may be Napa Valley’s best-known ukulele-playing winemaker. Several years ago he started a ukulele club in Napa Valley, The Wine Country Flea Jumpers, whose members include chefs, designers and other winemakers. The group meets monthly and welcomes new members; they practice songs sung in Hawaiian as well as American standards.

In 2006 Judd was awarded an unusual ukulele by The KoAloha Ukulele Company, one of Hawaii’s most respected workshops making hand-crafted ukuleles. Alvin Okami, the company’s founder, gave Judd a Pineapple Sunday because of Judd’s prominence as a modern interpreter of the ukulele genre. “We see a spark of ukulele greatness in Judd which we wanted to encourage,” Alvin Okami said. The Pineapple Sunday is literally shaped like a pineapple and the body has a unique cross-hatch design which Alvin pioneered. The body of the instrument is made of koa wood, native to Hawaii; the fretboard is straight-cut with a gloss finish; the face is debossed with KoAloha’s signature pineapple-patterned grid; the instrument also has KoAloha’s proprietary ‘musubi’ sound hole. More detail at www.koaloha.com.

Judd’s ‘day job’ is the winemaker at his family’s winery---Judd’s Hill. His family has been making fine Napa Valley wines for over 30 years.

Contact Judd Finkelstein, 707/255-2332, judd@juddshill.com, www.mkgents.com