Global Creatives Jake Shimabukuro, Bon Jovi, Riff on “Sakura, Sakura”
Jake Shimabukuro, master of the four-string ukelele, performs the Japanese folk tune “Sakura Sakura,” traditionally played on a 13-string koto. Video courtesy of JakeShimabukuro’s channel on YouTube. Didn’t know the intro to Bon Jovi’s “Tokyo Road” gave a nod to “Sakura Sakura” (See YouTube video here, courtesy of BuddyBerkman.) Nice.
Editor’s note: A late-summer heat wave in Northern Cali is fooling some plants into flowering, so I felt like re-running this spring post. Plus, we couldn’t score tickets to uke master Jake Shimabukuro’s upcoming concerts, so the videos will have to do.
REAL-LIFE CHERRY BLOSSOMS are beautiful. But the man-made images are tired and timeworn. The familiar and traditional need to evolve, or end up in museums and library archives, seen only by tour groups and graduate students. Global creatives — like Hawaiian musician Jake Shimabukuro, rock band Bon Jovi, and the digital photographers here — dodge the cliches and seek out the new.
“Dreaming of Spring” by Temari 09 (no real name given), under a Creative Commons license on flickr.
“Illuminated Sakura at Kiyomizudera” by Sue Ann Simon, under a Creative Commons license on flickr. Simon is a photographer and language teacher in Japan.
“Koyasan (Mount Koya)” by CrystallineRadical (Kazue Asano), under a Creative Commons license on flickr. Asano is a photographer in Osaka, Japan. While clicking past thousands of photos, I was drawn to this one before knowing its subject matter. My late grandmother made pilgrimages to Mount Koya, and other ancestors tended the family’s rice farm and homestead in the surrounding Wakayama Prefecture.
Filed under: Culture Tagged: bon jovi, cherry blossoms, global art, global artists, jake shimabukuro, kazue asano, koyasan, mount koya, sakura sakura, sue ann simon
