I’ve now had the uke for a couple of months, and all I can say is, that I’m in ukulele heaven. I struck a deal with Ken and he was kind enough to hold on to Pale Moon for a couple of months, until I could raise the necessary funds. It didn’t take long for me to decide that there was no way I was going to let this instrument slip away again. I had almost forgotten about Ken’s magnificent ebony uke when I suddenly spotted it at his booth in the merchant’s hall. Photo by Sandor Nagyszalanczy.įlash forward to the 2018 Reno Uke Fest this past May. The black and white ebony of Ken Franklin’s pale moon tenor ukulele. The instrument’s top is creamy Alaskan yellow cedar, and the body sports a “monitor hole” in the top upper bout. He also inlaid small rectangles of it into the uke’s jet-black ebony fingerboard, to serve as position markers. Ken used some particularly spectacular pale moon ebony for the uke’s back and sides, and tastefully employed it for the soundhole rosette and headstock overlays, front and back.

In fact, with light and dark shapes that mingle and flow together and apart, it looks less like wood and more like some kind of abstract landscape painted by Mother Nature. Also known as black and white ebony (Latin name: Diospyros malabarica), pale moon ebony comes from south-east Asia and has a color and grain unlike any other wood on the planet.

Not only was Ken a pleasure to get to know, but all the instruments he had on display were impressive in terms of craftsmanship, playability, and tone.īut there was one instrument in particular that struck my fancy: A tenor-sized uke Franklin had named “Pale Moon,” for the remarkable wood the body was made from. They are built by luthier Ken Franklin in Ukiah, California, so I was excited to meet him when I attended the 2017 Reno Uke Festival. I’ve long admired the lovely ukuleles that my San Francisco Bay Area friend and musical colleague Janet Lenore plays. Uke Tales is an exploration of some of the author’s ukulele collection, which numbers 400+ instruments, and other instruments that have an interesting story.

Pale moon ebony fingerboard