This is a revised and enlarged version of a video uploaded a year ago. Its purpose is to honour and commemorate the Forty-Fifth Anniversary of the birth of Minako Honda. This video is dedicated, also, to the memory of my very dearest friend Kenichi Kurosawa - KEN-san, who passed away on May 4, 2012 and who had taught me about music and life and roses and the beauty that humankind is capable of...Rest In Peace Kenichi-san, May The Grace Of G-d Be With You.
The video is a tribute to several of the many persons who were important in the life and career of Honda Minako. It offers a perspective of one from the West. If one finds it to be a personal view, it is; especially with regard to the importance of John Wilson, whose modesty has been the reason he has never received the enormous credit due him for his work with Minako, The Jackson Five, and many other things. This video could not have been accomplished without the help and encouragement from several friends, aflove1, brjmh , Dominaxel, and Musicmellow
Honda Minako had a deep affinity for good jazz, and it seemed appropriate to employ fine jazz to accompany the pictures. "Good Places" is a song recorded on side two of the LP "Gandharva" by Beaver & Krause on February 10-11, 1971. It was recorded in San Francisco in Grace Cathedral which has a seven second sound decay, reverberation. The players are Gail Laughton on Harp (two harps), Paul Beaver on Pipe Organ, Gerry Mulligan on Baritone Saxophone, and Bud Shank on Alto Saxophone. It can be found on the CD, "In A Wild Sanctuary/Gandharva" as Track 17, and is available in both CD and MP3 from Amazon and many other vendors.
