Award-winning Honokaa High School jazz band director Gary Washburn, his son Mocha Washburn, a Honokaa graduate, and Washburn’s brother, Kent Washburn of Los Angeles, will be inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame Nov. 16 as members of the ’60s dance band, “The Shadow Lake Eight.” Following the ceremony, the band will perform a concert at The Jazz Depot in Tulsa.
A family musical journey that began in Oklahoma and traveled across the country, the Washburns made names for themselves individually and together — as educator, composer, producer, record executive and superlative musicians — for more than 50 years.
Gary Washburn joined The Shadow Lake Eight in 1962 when he was 15 and still in high school. He worked in Los Angeles as a writer/arranger for Motown, then moved to Hawaii Island, where he became a composer, musician and school teacher.
In 2010, he was awarded the “Claes Nobel Educator of Distinction Award” and in 2011 his program received an award from the Grammy Foundation for its unique and outstanding band program.
“I don’t do marching bands,” he said. “What good is that going to be for musically inclined students in this day and age? I teach them how to compete in today’s real music market —rock ’n’ roll.
In 2013, Gary Washburn was named “A Living Hawaiian Treasure” by the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii, and proclaimed by the Hawaii State Senate.
He attributed his successes as an educator and performer to the years he spent playing with The Shadow Lake Eight. He lives in Honokaa with his wife, Linaka Morton-Washburn.
Mocha Washburn is the latest addition to The Shadow Lake Eight, joining in 2013 for a reunion concert in Ponca City, Okla. With early musical training from his father, Mocha Washburn played in the Honokaa Jazz Band until his graduation in 1996. He graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, then went to Hollywood and attended the Guitar Institute of Technology at Musicians Institute for two years, where he received the Tommy Tedesco Memorial Award for Most Outstanding Student. Mocha Washburn moved to Austin, Texas, where he plays with various local groups and performs regularly as a solo artist at numerous venues.
Kent Washburn joined The Shadow Lake Eight in fall 1960, functioning as the leader from 1962 through 1967. He eventually became a successful record producer. He left Motown in 1979 and started a Gospel label, Command Records, with Philip Nicholas. His productions also received three Grammy nominations.
Kent Washburn lives in Los Angeles and works for Milan Entertainment in Los Angeles as senior vice president of finance and royalties, and is currently working with Soul Intention Records in the United Kingdom to re-release record productions in Europe. This month, Kent Washburn will release Gary Washburn’s original composition, “Earth Life: October Full Moon,” an eight-piece suite of contemporary classical music for two pianos and percussion.
