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From JEREMY
May 2012
I normally prefer doing things in Yokohama, but last month I had two good
reasons to go to Tokyo. One was a movie called Standing Army. I strongly recommend this movie. It was about the more than 700 U.S.
army bases around the world. It didn't paint a pretty picture of America
and I was glad to be viewing it in Japan where I now live. Since coming
here I've read a lot about the situation in Okinawa. Local people want
the U.S. out, but the central government is sticking to a deal made right
after WWII. We're finding out about the pollution caused by leaking barrells
of Agent Orange in Okinawa. The noise from the planes is making the people
who live right next to the base miserable. Local residents have been kicked
off all the choice lands and can't get it back even though Okinawa was
supposedly given back to Japan 40 years ago.
Every time there is a war the U.S. leaves behind permanent military bases.
The yearly cost of running these bases is about one trillion dollars. No
wonder America is broke. I learned from the movie that they are now building
a new base in Italy almost 70 years after WWII ended. Local people protested
but the central government said "OK". They always do.
The worst story was about Diego Garcia, an island in the central Indian
Ocean. It was a perfect space for future military action, and the entire
population was kicked off the island.
My second trip to Tokyo was also intense, but in a positive way. I saw
a Jackson Pollock show. I wanted to go home and throw paint afterwards,
but I would have had to trash my place, so Igave up the idea. It was a
beautiful show and included a movie of him painting. In the movie, it looked
as if he were pointing where he wanted the paint to land. The lines had
a mind of their own. It was a little like my piano playing.
Next, I am going to see a Max Ernst exhibition after the crowds from the
Golden Week holidays go away. Luckily, it's in Yokohama.
| From my recent drawings |
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April 2012
The cherry blossoms in my neighborhood have become a major attraction of
the season for people who visit Yokohama. This year, they began to open
a little later than usual, but are now in full bloom on April 10. Check
them out!
| Cherry trees along the O-oka River, which pours into Tokyo Bay. You can
see lanterns for the nightly viewing through the blossoms. |
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| Birds wade through the river and can also be seen in the park near Yokohama
Stadium. |
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March 2012
Spring is here. Our avocado pit has grown roots. Went to hear Hideo Ichikawa's
quartet at Airigin (Nigeria spelled backwards) in Kannai. I enjoyed it
immensely.
It's been a year since the earthquake, tsunami and the meltdown, and it
looks like Japan can do fine without atomic power. The only people who
want to keep it are TEPCO and politicians.
Young Guitar magazine is featuring a story about Tommy Bolin, a great rock
guitarist that I used to have a group with. The editor-in-chief Nishimura
of the magazine did a wonderful job with the story. Check out my interview
in it! (if you can read Japanese.) The Guitar Man
February 2012
We took a trip to Kobe in late January. When we arrived at the hotel the
room key turned to the left. The fast lane on the escarlators is also on
the left. I wonder if there are many left-handed people in Kobe.
We went to two great museums. We had some delicious just-brewed sake at
the Sake Museum. Then we went to the Lamp Museum. It had the complete history
of lamps in Japan. Very beautiful stuff (See photos). In Kobe, jazz can
be heard in the hotel rooms, restaurants and elevators instead of Muzak.
But they only play ballads. Kobe is a very laid-back and quiet city. Of
course, we had Kobe beef steak.
I'm not surprised that the Costa Concordia, the Italian lux liner tipped
over and sank. I used to watch those ships on the Hudson River in NYC.
They are basically large buildings on to of a ship. The balance can't be
good. Nothing will be done until one sinks at sea killing many people.
By the way, I read that they are still trying to locate an original Sharaku
in the sunken ship and he didn't do that many works.
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Sake Museum in Nada
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Sake Museum in Nada
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Old Sake Cups
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Lamp Museum begins with building a fire
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History of lamps
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| History of lamps |
Beautiful designs
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Modern Western lamps came to Japan
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Matchbooks |
January 2012
2012 is here. The last year of the Mayan Calendar!? If you thinkg that
there is a heaven and hell try to be an extra good person. I'm going to
do as much creative work as I can just in case this is it.
Speaking of large volumes of creative work, I recently saw a show of Kuniyoshi
in Tokyo. He was a fantastic ukiyo-e artist. Seeing his stuff was very
inspiring. He did great demons and wonderful animals. I went home and started
drawing.
We also went to the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World in
Yokohama. There were thousands of people attending. The speakers were terrific
and some of them were very emotional. I think that if the politicians listened
to the majority of the Japanese people all the nuclear power plants would
be shut down.
We also saw the movie On the Beach this month on DVD. Fred Astaire was in it and he wasn't dancing. In the
end, everyone in the world dies and we see a religious banner that reads
"THERE'S STILL TIME BROTHER." The movie was made in 1959 and
now there really isn't much time, is there?
December 2011
I went to the Kotato-Fukushima flute factory last week to see their amazing flutes. (See photos.)
They are made beautifully and are ideal for jazz. this is indeed a special place in Japan.
| Mr. Kotato plays his big flutes. |
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December is for JAMMY. As a kid, my nickname was Jemmy. For a while some crappy friends made
fun of my name and called me "Jammy." While walking in Yokohama,
this memory came back to me and a light bulb lit up in my head. Our new
digital picture book JAMMY is about a boy who's always looking to play with the sounds he hears.
In other words, he wants to jam. This is the first jazz story in our series,
but I think you'll also like the three other stories, so we are making
a Christmas discount for all four. (See Coffee Break page.)
December also brought many ducks to O-oka River.
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| They move towards people, probably expecting to be fed. |
Nice face! |
Making a beeline for me. |
They often dive to eat. |
Leaves are turning red. |
November 2011
I'd like to write about the TPP deal from the perspective of an American
living in Japan. Hey, guys, don't do it! I came here partly because of
the great food grown in Japan. I've never felt so healthy. I was getting
sick in New York from all the unhealthy food. We had to shop in a dozen
different places to survive. The fruit is always rotten. The milk has pus
in it. Genetic food is poison and don't you dare eat any processed food!!
Japn will be swamped with cheap food and the farmers will go out of business.
Then, when you can't feed yourselves the prices will go way up. I'm an
American. That's the way we do things there.
On the ligher side, a few days ago, I broke the chop sticks that I was
using. They were a wedding gift from a friend almost nine years ago. I
shaved their ends and now they are terrific dipping pens.
October 2011
I like to end my day by watching an English language movie on Japanese cable. A few nights ago I was treated to The Distinguished Gentleman with Eddie Murphy. He plays a black con man who gets elected to Congress
because he has the same name as another congressman who just died of a
heart attack. He gets elected on "name recognition". In his acceptance
speech, he is asked what his platform was because no one has ever seen
him or heard him speak. He says that he was running on "change".
My mouth fell open, and I turned to my wife and saw that her mouth was
also hanging open in disbelief. That, of course, was a joke and I'm sure
that everyone in the movie theater burst out laughing when it first came
out in 1992.
There is a large protest going on in New York against the criminal bankers
of Wall St. Japanese TV news reported it before CNN did. I obtained much
more information on the Internet. For example, I saw a YouTube clip of
some girls getting pepper sprayed by the police outside of Japonica, a
Japanese restaurant which we used to walk to for dinner. Then the news
of Wall St. disappeared when Steve Jobs died. I saw people crying, mourning,
dropping flowers off in front of the Apple stores in both and New York
and Tokyo. He is being compared to Edison, da Vinci, and Henry Ford. He
was a good businessman and had some creative ideas that were implemented
by a lot of talented people. I can understand Henry Ford, but Edison or
da Vinci? After all, Ford turned out to be one of the major contributors
to global warming. I would wait for another 20 years, at least, to say
anything about Jobs.
Here are some photos of my neighborhood creatures.
September 2011
I'm happy to be away from the 9.11 malaise in New York. This has been a
hot summer, but there is no place I'd rather be. There is something about
Japan that makes me want to play my flutes and draw pictures.
My wife and I are working on our 4th digital picture book. It's about a
flute playing boy who can't help but improvise with all the sounds he hears.
If someone like that lived in America in the 21st century, they'd probably
be pumping him with Ritalin, but this is a positive story and he somehow
falls under the radar.
I watch CNN and am reminded why I left America. I had to hear over a hundred
times that Japan has had five prime ministers in six years. In other words,
what a screwed up country this is, but when I think about it that's a lot
better than being stuck with the same idiot for eight years only to be
replaced by a different version of the same thing. Martin Luther King said
it wasn't the color of your skin but the content of your character (that
people should be judged by).So far, the only difference between the two
idiots has been the color of the skin. I also read The Japan Times. There
are many stories by Americans living in Japan who complain about being
here. They can't make freinds and blame it on the differnece between cultures.
To me, many things in Japan make more sense than where I came from. Taking
your shoes off before entering the home is logic, not culture. Bowing is
much more respectful, not to mention hygienic, than shaking hands. Chopsticks
make the food taste better. I never liked the feeling of metal in my mouth.
Many foreigners make fun of Japanese people behaving too orderly, but who
wants to be bumped into in the street? If you do go to NY. To me, Japanese
people behave very logically. Bathing in the bathroom and having a separate
toilet is also logical. I saw an American TV show, in which they tested
toothbrushes kept in American bathrooms and found feces on them.
September also means that I'm going to be 69. When I hit 70 I can probably
join the old guys' jazz circuit and will be given gigs. Ha-ha. I will also
get a subway discount. In the meantime, I recommend that you check out
our digital picture books. It's a great way to introduce jazz to children.
Since we are all children at heart it'll be good for you, too.
I'm a jazz musician and jazz is international. Jazz learns from all music.
It's not about combining different forms of music. It's about learning
from everything you hear and making it swing through improvisation. Countires
have to be more like jazz and learn from each other. On CNN, I hear many
Americans including the President say that "the American way is the
best way" and that it is the greatest country in the world. Thinking
that your way is the best way ensures that it will never be. Those who
say, "I know," don't.
August 2011
Last week, my wife and I were invited to attend a jazz festival celebrating
the 50th anniversary of "Waltz for Debbie," a tribute to Bill
Evans. I wanted to hear some new players and when the Makoto Ozone Big
Band played I wasn't disappointed. Makoto-san's writing and playing were
very exciting and even though I had to sit through many hours of mostly
tense female pianists and some incredibly bad singing, his music was well
worth waiting for. I've played a few memorials for Bill myself, but I personally
think that the best way to celebrate him is to listen to his LPs. I will
say this. Bill taught me a lot about music without even talking about it.
I like to take walks by the Oo-oka River. There are lots of large carp
and grey mullets, turtles that my wife says that don't belong there, ducks
and a few herons. Yesterday, I saw a ray. I've noticed that the pigeons
sing different tunes in the morning and in the afternoon. I don't steal
from other musicians, but I must admit that I steal from nature.
August 13 was Frac's 5th anniversary. Frac was my cat. Every summer, my
wife and I remember him. I love cats. Recently, we had a chance to have
a drink with a couple of good friends. They told me about Kuniyoshi, a
ukiyo-e artist who drew cats in many of his works. In our digital picture
book "Nose Coloring Girl" I drew an orange cat. My friends said that you just have to live
with a cat to discover certain things that are unique to cats so that you'll
be able to draw them from memory.They were right. Wheneve I draw a cat
I think of Frac. |
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| Photos from left to right: Jeremy with Mr. Ozone; at the festival; too
hot for a cat at the festival |
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July 2011
Hi, folks. Welcome to my new website coming to you from Yokohama, Japan,
where I plan to live for the rest of my life. Yokohama is a great place
for walking. That's my exercise. Walking to Sakuragicho or Yokohama Station.
I love Japan--the people, the food, the clean subways and streets. I live
in a very quiet neighborhood, which is wonderful for a musician. Just about
every house has flowers outside. I see lots of happy children everywhere.
In New York, where I come from, children are hidden away or strapped in
strollers. (See Don't Strap Me Down.) My wife and I are working on slide shows for people of all ages. I'm
writing and performing the soundtracks and illustrating. We also build
miniature structures, take photos and write stories. I'm very excited about
what we are doing.
I didn't miss the earthquake in March. We experienced a small one on March
9th and decided jokingly that the next time we would meet under the dining
table. Two days later, we were under the table. The apartment shook violently
and the paintings on the wall danced. Our TV crashed to the floor, but
thanks to Japanese technology it didn't break. So we saw everything that
followed live. Then I realized that those (Sendai, Iwaki, Iwate and Aomori)
were places where I had played on tour. Anyone who might have met me or
heard me play, please contact me at this website and let me know how you
are doing.
After the earthquake, I started to get e-mails from the U.S. urging me to come back and save myself. I wrote that they had enouhg atomic plants of their own to worry about and sent photos of the beautiful cherry blossoms near my house.
A week later, my mother-in-law, my wife and I went to Hiroshima--the first
city that experienced the nuclear insanity. I had played there before but
never saw the outside of the club, which was in a hotel. This time, my
family took me to the Peace Memorial Museum. There was a replica of the
city and my mother-in-law pointed out where her home had been bombed.
My Japanese cousin drove us to Onomichi, a beautiful place with a fabulous
view of the Inland Sea. I found a cute little store and bought some excellent
Japanese bamboo pens. I draw with bamboo pens. Shaving the points gives me my own line. In New
York, the pens I bought came from Southeast Asia, but here, quality pens
made in Japan are available. In this digital age, I think that it's important
to seek out organic methods of making art and music. |
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| Photos from left to right: Peace Memorial Park; Peace Watch Tower at the
Museum; Onomichi. |
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| June 25, 2011 |
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