Advertisements and Articles
Featuring Professor George Kia Nahaolelua
The advertisements below have been enlarged to allow the text to be read. The dates range from 1907 (at least five years before the "official" introduction of the ukulele to the mainland, to about 1914.
(Special thanks to James Tranquada for providing assistance with this page.)
 The "bouncing flea" mentioned in this ad describes the way the fingers move across the strings on the ukulele. Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1907. |  George Kia was the featured ukulele teacher at the George J. Birkel Company, with whom arrangements were made to teach students to play the instrument. Professor Kia, as he was known, was billed as the Hawaiian Virtuoso in this 1914 advertisement. |
This program was from a dinner recital by George Kia and his students at the Gamut Club in Los Angeles, Thursday, April 30, 1914. George Kia was an accomplished musician who played not only the ukulele, but the steel guitar and bass as well. The transcript of the May 1, 1914 article from the Los Angeles Times follows.  |
- From the Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1914
From Beyond the Seas
Hawaiian Songs and Ukuleles
Native Singers Heard in their "Aloha Oe"
by Hector Alliot
Ukuleles, mandolins and leis held their sway over a large audience last evening at the Gamut Club auditorium.
Without any claims to musical recital of works by great muasters, a company of players and students gave selections of Hawaiian music and songs, relieved by popular numbers, to the evident delight of the audience.
The miniature guitar, the ukulele, was the musical instrument which appeared as an obligate with almost every number. This toy-like string instrument, made of the koa wood, the only one, according to native legends, which can accompany with sweet melody and softness the somewhat melancholic chants of Hawaii, has a tone altogether its own.
It would be difficult to imagine a more suitable instrument to accompany the famous "Aloha Oe", which longingly and beseechingly haunts those who have heard it played by natives.
"Adio ke Aloha" and "Wehi Wehi Oe" were played by D. Kaleo and his quartette; "Aloha", a ukulele solo by George Kia, assisted by Misses Lucile Bay, C. Mossman and Master M. Smith; "Mi Poina oe Pau" was sung by Miss Rose and quartette; "Wili Wili Wei" a guitar number and song by Kia and quartette; "Aloha Oe", by A.K. Lewis and a group of ukulele players.
The various songs, melodious, simple, yet posessed of that fundamental quality of genuiness and simplicity of all native music, illustrated well the land of Hawaii, and I understand better the words of Mark Twain, written twenty years after his visit to the enchanted isles: "For me, its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun. I can see its garlanded crags, leaping cascades and its palms drowning by the shore."
To enliven the programme, Mickel Pingitore, A. Will, B. Kirkenhoffer, W. Reynolds, R.C. Currier, Mrs. G.B. Perkins, W. Coleman and others gave exhibitions of ukulele and mandolin playing, adapted to old popular melodies, like "Silver Threads Among the Gold", "The Old Plantation", and Kia attempted, not unsuccessfully, a solo interpretation of "Il Travatore"., showing how far a ukulele expert can go in the use of his favorite instrument.
The L.A. High School Glee Club assisted with "From the Land of the Sky Blue".
Two special selections, one comic by Wesley Ruggles, and another by Viola Schotzburg, only 5 years old, divided the two parts of the programme.
If you know of anyone who might be in some way related, or knows anything else about this family, please contact me.