Japanese jazz

Japanese jazz or Jap-Jazz, refers to jazz music played by Japanese musicians, or jazz music that is in some way connected to Japan or Japanese culture. In a broader sense, the concept is often used to refer to the history of jazz in Japan. Japan has, according to some estimates, the largest proportion of jazz fans in the world. Attempts at fusing jazz music with aspects of Japanese culture in the United States are commonly termed Asian-American jazz.

Early jazz music was popularized in Japan thanks to the overseas trips of both Americans and Filipino jazz bands, the latter having acquainted themselves with the music in their native country through the presence of the American occupying forces. Built around the performances of the Filipinos, local jazz practice began to emerge in Japan in the early 1920s, most notably in the prosperous entertainment districts of Osaka and Kobe. By 1924 the city of Osaka already boasted twenty dance halls, which gave many Japanese-born musicians the first opportunity to play jazz themselves professionally. Trumpeter Fumio Nanri (1910–1975) was the first of these Japanese jazz performers to gain international acclaim for his playing style. In 1929 Nanri traveled to Shanghai, where he played with Teddy Weatherford, and in 1932 he toured in the United States. After his return to Japan, Nanri made several recordings with his Hot Peppers, an American-style swing band.

The "Americanness" and mass appeal of early jazz as dance music gave reason for concern among the conservative Japanese elite, and in 1927 Osaka municipal officials issued ordinances that forced the dance halls to close. A large number of young musicians switched to the jazz scene in Tokyo, where some found employment in the house jazz orchestras of the major recording companies. In the 1930s, popular song composers Ryoichi Hattori and Koichi Sugii tried to overcome jazz music’s controversial qualities by creating a distinctively Japanese kind of jazz music. They reworked ancient Japanese folk or theatre songs with a jazz touch, and in addition wrote new jazz songs that had Japanese thematic content and often closely resembled well-known traditional melodies. In 1933 "Chigusa," Japan’s first jazz café, or jazu kissa, opened in Osaka. Since then, jazz coffeehouses have continuously provided a popular alternative to the dance hall for Japanese jazz devotees, offering the latest jazz records (while occasionally also hosting live performances) to an attentively listening audience.

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