Jimmy Borges born 1 June 1935

Jimmy Borges (September 1, 1935 - May 30, 2016) was one of Hawaii's premier jazz musicians, performing for 60 years. A magnetic presence, Borges thrived on stage where he could connect personally with his audience. He is credited with helping keep jazz and the great American songbook alive in Honolulu. From the music of Cole Porter to James Taylor, Frank Sinatra to Stevie Wonder, Borges put his own jazzy stamp on each song, backed by the town’s top musicians. 

Borges started out life on the edge. His mother was just 17 when he was born prematurely at home in Kalihi. His first bed was a cigar box. Jimmy grew up playing ball in the street and went on to all-star in football and baseball, all while wearing hand-me-down shoes. He learned to love big band tunes when he was a child, listening to records that GIs gave his mother, who manned a hot-dog stand in Kalihi. From age 12, he spent most of his years on the mainland, and went on to earn a football scholarship at San Francisco State College. 

At age 20, he discovered he could get paid to sing in Bay Area nightclubs, and he never looked back. Borges would bluff his way onto the stage at nightclubs by informing the manager that he was looking for a band to take with him on the road. That way, he got asked to sing and didn’t have to plead for a turn, he recalled. The young vocalist was “drop-dead handsome” and stood out because he had style, according to Cha Thompson, a lifelong pal. 

Borges sang at the “Forbidden City” nightclub in San Francisco before being recruited to Las Vegas in 1959, where he replaced the star of a show called “Holiday in Japan.” He remembers being thrilled, “as a Catholic boy,” to be surrounded by dozens of beautiful women on stage. In 1963 he released two singles including “The Earth Stood Still.” From Vegas, Borges was tapped to star in a show at the renowned Latin Quarter nightclub in New York City. He went on to perform at such famed venues as the Fairmont and Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San San Francisco, the Latin Quarter in New York City, the Schubert in Boston, Harrah’s in Reno and Lake Tahoe, the Dunes in Las Vegas, and the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, to name a few. 

                                    

Borges headlined Keone’s, a jazz club in Waikiki, for several years in the 1970s. Then he and pianist Betty Loo Taylor held court for 10 years at Trappers in the Hyatt Regency, through 1986. “He did really well and attracted a big following,” said longtime friend Gordon Sakamoto. “Not just locals, but a lot of well known entertainers stopped by there a lot. People like Tony Bennett, Jack Jones, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. They had heard about him.” Bennett was quoted as saying of Borges, “Wherever this man goes, follow him. He’s one of the best singers I’ve ever heard.” 

Borges was the only singer granted free and complete access to Frank Sinatra’s archive of musical arrangements. He relayed his request through a mutual friend, and Sinatra reportedly sent a scout to check him before saying, “give the kid what he wants.” When Sinatra’s aide called to tell him, Borges could hear a smile in her voice and asked what was so funny. “Well, Mr. Borges, to be very frank, a lot singers like Tony Bennett and Victor Moon and all these big shots, they wanted to borrow arrangements but they were too afraid to ask,” she said, chuckling. “But this guy from Hawaii who no one ever heard of calls up and asks, and Mr. Sinatra gives him the house.” Borges’ fondness for those arrangements prompted some observers to dub him “Hawaii’s Sinatra,” but he dodged the label. 

Borges with Jack Lloyd

He favored live performances and didn’t put much stock in recording. Although he put out an album, Honolulu Lady, in 1991, he says he made little effort to promote it. In 2008, the Hawaii Academy of Recording Artists gave him a Lifetime Achievement award. Borges supplemented his career by acting and made guest appearances on the Rockford Files (1974) Magnum P.I (1980) and multiple episodes on the original Hawaii Five-O (1968-1980), and the later Hawaii Five-0 (2010) and various other TV shows. 

In 2011, Jimmy beat cancer, when a football sized tumor was removed from his liver. But the cancer resurfaced in 2015. Rather than undergo chemotherapy and radiation, Jimmy decided to live his life to the fullest, which included singing and the release of a CD, representing the Great American Songbook. He passed away on Monday, May 30th, 2016, just before his 81st birthday and only two days after the 39th Annual Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards ceremony, during which he was honored as 2016 Male Vocalist of the Year and Favorite Entertainer of the Year and also earned awards for Jazz Album of the Year and Album of the Year. 

(Edited from Honolulu Star-Advertiser)