MAUI NEI

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Philip "Pat" Green was one of those haole who came to Maui with a job in hand at a time when the island - population 42,000 - was just beginning its march to today. There was a long tradition of hiring Mainland teachers for island schools, but Pat - he never used his first name - was probably the first professional performer to be hired to teach music at Baldwin High School.

Pat was certainly the first to come to Maui with an 18-year-old bride who had been a professional model and entertainer in her own right. The island rolled out the welcome mat for the young couple. At first, Pat and Betty lived in the Wailuku Hotel. For the first month or so, they ate nearly every night at the home of some islander. It wasn't only aloha. Newcomers were a novelty in 1959.

He played piano, arranged choral music and at Baldwin directed a choir that included a student from Happy Valley. Jesse Kuhaulua had a sweet tenor voice that was later chopped into nonexistence when he became Takamiyama, the first American sumotori.

The piano man had spent years on Mainland roads between performances with various big bands and his jazz trio, the Varietones. That kind of traveling can get old and the lure of sleeping every night in your own bed can become very strong. Maui gave Pat a familiar bed, but he still hit the road.

Then, as now, a professional musician on Maui took whatever gigs came along. At one point he accompanied a troupe of strippers from Japan. That was at the Tokyo Tei when it was a nightclub on Kanoa Street near the Hokama music store. The strippers didn't know a word of English and all began their dances in full kimono.

During the Christmas holiday, one of the strippers wanted to use the hymn "Silent Night," not exactly the most appropriate material for bumping and grinding. She didn't understand English and Pat didn't understand Japanese, but somehow he convinced her to use "Jingle Bell Rock" or some other holiday pop tune.

Then there was the time he was playing at the Whale's Tail in Lahaina during the infamous Whaling Spree, a tourist promotion that was eventually shut down due to excessive public drunkenness and rowdy behavior. A fight broke out. Pat's bride had to hide behind the piano when glasses and bottles began flying. He probably just kept on playing while he was ducking. Pat was a professional, no matter what.

The Baldwin High gig segued into teaching at Mauna'olu College on Baldwin Avenue where the Job Corps is now located. The couple moved into an apartment that had been carved out of the main administration building. There was a World War II morgue in the basement.

Pat set up an amateur radio station in a big closet so he could stay in touch with his dad in Denver. Long-distance telephone calls cost the earth. His bride was house mother to a bunch of Micronesian students who were older than she was. The students were more than happy to teach her how to cook green sea turtle. It was legal in those days.

Later the couple moved up the hill into a school-supplied house on the Seabury Hall campus. Pat taught and arranged choral music in the daytime and hit the road nearly every night. He enjoyed driving performance cars. For some years, the trek from Olinda to Kaanapali was done in a tiny, not-always-reliable Triumph TR6 coupe. He bought a Gremlin for his bride.

Pat was a pillar of Maui music. He played with nearly every working musician on the island and many visiting notables - jazz to Hawaiian to rock 'n' roll. He became a fixture at the island's most luxurious dining rooms where he was ready to play nearly any request, relying on memory and a box of file cards - his personal, hand-notated "fake book." He began tuning pianos and spent some years on the Mainland learning how to restore pianos. There were a lot of pianos on Maui that desperately needed restoration. Salt air and open hotel spaces are not kind to instruments.

Philip "Pat" Green saw Maui go from rustic to sophisticated and literally played a part in the transformation. In 2005 he moved back to his mile-high roots. He died peacefully Nov. 4 in Denver. He was 78. He is survived by his daughters, Juliet Green and Rachel Giusti. A service is planned for Maui at a later date.

n Ron Youngblood can be reached at

youngblood@mauinews.com.