Dear friends!!!!
We had our second daughter Mako (Mah-ko) on the 12th of September 1995.
Keiko just had a baby girl!
"They are both fine and happy," Maya said over the
phone from Tokyo.
Please share this wonderful moment of our life with us. And please take
care of Mako (Miss Sapphire) as you take care of us.
Some friends have been wondering why we are not touring
this year.
This was the reason why. We are so happy to have Mako joining
our family this year. She is little smaller size, even for Japanese girl,
but she is fine, did not have to stay in the box. I have not seen her yet,
since Keiko, Maya and Mako are in Japan, and I am working here in L.A. Well,
if I am doing my own projects, I could have changed the schedule. But this
is Movie session and there are no substitute Shakuhachi players for me.
But I am OK. The day Maya called me from Japan, telling me the baby has
arrived, I drunk some Sake (which is very rare for me) alone and was feeling
great. Yes, it is another great responsibility, but this is the kind of
the responsibility on which our happiness is based on. Keiko said that baby
is beautiful and has long fingers. Maya has become friends with all the
doctors, nurses and patients in the hospital last 3 weeks. She sometime
spends more time with other friends patients than Keiko before the baby
was born. But now, Maya's friend in school reported her mom that Maya has
been
talking about the baby all the time in the school.
Mako (Mah-Ko) means child of the truth. We went through so many books
and spent hours to come up the name. Maya pushed this one for a long time,
during summer vacation, between her gigantic Dinosaurs project which filled
her classroom's wall when the school started. Well she is her sister. Maya
will take care of her little sister longer than we do. As some of our friends
know, Mako's un-official English name is Miss Sapphire. We have been using
this name on e-mails, when we did not know her real name. We named Keiko's
new album "Sapphire", because of the baby's birth stone. The album
came out much before the baby, and there was a moment that baby might come
in August. If that was the case, we might have to recall all the albums
and changed the name into Ruby. We like the name Sapphire better. The album
started doing very well, and already on the radio and Billboard charts.
The baby is catching up the album soon, on Height and Weight charts.
This summer was an interesting summer. First I taught Maya how to ride
bicycle without small side wheels. This expanded our territories of activities
a lot. Then we went to a small fisherman's village for 3 days with Keiko's
mother. It was a nice vacation. Then I came back here in U.S., playing for
the movie called JADE. During that, Keiko went to the hospital to stay.
Maya was reporting me all these things by phone calls and faxes from Japan,
with pictures, saying "Don't worry". Keiko ended up staying in
the hospital for 45 days, just for precautions. (Japanese hospitals are
free for the baby birth related things. Thank god! ) When I went back to
Tokyo, it was a hottest summer we had in 100 years. The hospital was 2 min.
bicycle ride from our home, so that Maya and I went there everyday at 4
o'clock to spend couple hours. It became our habit to pick up three icecreams
on the way. We went to the near by swimming pool three times in the early
afternoons with my cellular phone. Doctor said to us that baby can come
any day. So we did not leave home farther than 2 miles for two weeks. We
were like bees, circling around the Queen bee. Finally I had to leave to
U.S. for the sessions. (This time, the movie's name was JUMANJI, a children's
story with Robin Williams.) I am alone here in L.A., but now, every thing
seems right. We are far apart, but we feel fine, stable and peaceful.
Before I forget, Keiko's new album SAPPHIRE (Unity) has been released
in July. We love the album, but we say that every time the new album comes
out, don't we? And Kazu's new album THE WIND was released in April.(Unity/Kazu)
Sax Player of our band, Paul Taylor's first album ON THE HORN (Unity) was
released in June, and doing very very well on the Radio charts. Congratulations,
Paul!! Akira Jimbo's PANAMA-MAN (Unity/Kazu) is out also in Spring. Kazu
produced those albums, please check them out.
We started our music TV program for Japan, Asia, Europe and who knows,
maybe for U.S. Our first guests were Gerald Albright, Carl Anderson and
Bony James. We are shooting 4 more shows in October. The show is called
NIGHT JAMS.
We hope we can travel many places with Mako, just like we did with Maya.
We hope we spend many wonderful Christmas and New years with Mako, just
like we did with Maya. If we can repeat everything we did with Maya, with
Mako, we will be happy and no complaint. Life is good. Maya is already waiting
for Mako to go to same school she goes. Thank you everyone. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kazu,Keiko and Maya Matsui
P.S. We wish everything is going well with you. We will be touring next
year. We miss playing concerts a lot. So see you soon.
KEIKO MATSUI INTERNATIONAL FUN CLUB
P.O.Box 68035-507
Anaheim, CA 92817-0835