Japan's love affair with jazz is an old one. A unique one. It is home to hundreds of jazz-listening bars and cafés, places where chatting is at best frowned upon, and even forbidden between certain ...

Through their Tokyo Jazz Joints podcast and book, Philip Arneill and James Catchpole aim to spotlight, honor and preserve Japan’s storied jazz kissa culture. Now, Catchpole is undertaking his most ...

Led by Grammy-winning Terell Stafford, the ensemble took a long-awaited trip to Tokyo last spring, wowing the audience at a ...

“Japanese-influenced listening bars” may be the latest, greatest trend in US bar culture, but their high-end sound systems and even more highfalutin aesthetic draw from a much more humble practice: ...

This month Eric Pye toured 6 Jazz Kissas across Tokyo, Japan. Find out what they’re all about. When I visit Japan I have two main goals, besides visiting with friends and family. I lived here for over ...

Could you imagine coffee shops in any North American or European city that played jazz non-stop all day, or bars where, variously, as you quenched your thirst, you heard only Blue Note Records, ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Peaking in the 1960s and 1970s with jazz's commercial zenith, these establishments provided (and ...

Jazz kissa rose to prominence in the 1960s and 70s in Japan, as music aficionados flocked to listen to the latest Thelonious Monk or John Coltrane in a comfortable setting Now listening bars are ...

Though Herbie Hancock may not have the fancy footwork of the heroes who usually play Tokyo Stadium, as director of Tokyo Jazz 2002, he still managed to draw over 37,000 people to the soccer pitch the ...