HERE COMES THE SUN BEAR

There’s been a definite Japanese theme permeating my life recently, partly due to hearing about a close friend's son moving to Tokyo and one of my oldest friends messaging me from a Samurai jazz bar in the same city. Yesterday, he sent me photographs of signed records from jazz greats spanning decades, including one by an old favourite of mine and my father's—Abdullah Ibrahim.

It seems that the crazier the world gets, the more people gravitate toward the aesthetic brilliance and Zen rituals of Japanese culture, as well as its ability to appreciate and subsume the joy of Western culture—especially rock 'n' roll, jazz, classical, and opera music into its collective memory. The country's sheer devotion to culture in general proves that a society is not entirely lost when it still remembers how to experience joy without political interference or toxic ideology creeping in.

And of course, today would have been my late father's 83rd birthday. So much of what defined his sensibility—in architecture, design, and spirituality—was deeply influenced by Japan. It’s as if he was a sensei, reborn to teach us provincial lot about the culture.

So, over morning coffee, I’m playing his copy of Keith Jarrett's Tokyo concert from the Sun Bear Concert series on ECM (the last birthday present I bought him), and I’m reminded of how many cultural riches he’s left us in his absence.

So here’s to the old man, Keith Jarrett, and Japan!

お誕生日おめでとう