Japanese Jazz - History of Jazz in Japan

History of Jazz in Japan

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.

During World War II, jazz was considered "enemy music" and banned in Japan. However, by then the genre had become far too popular for a complete ban to be successful. Jazz-like songs, sometimes of a strongly patriotic type, continued to be performed, though these songs were usually referred to as "light music." After the war, the Allied Occupation (1945–1952) of Japan provided a new incentive for Japanese jazz musicians to emerge, as the American troops were eager to hear the music they listened to back home. Pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi (b. 1929) arrived in Tokyo in 1948, determined to become a professional jazz musician. After having formed the Cozy Quartet she was then noticed by Hampton Hawes, who was stationed in Yokohama with his military band, and brought to the attention of Oscar Peterson. Akiyoshi studied at the Berklee School of Music in Boston in 1956, and later achieved world-wide success as a bop pianist and big band leader.

By the end of the 1950s, native jazz practice again flourished in Japan, and in the following decades an active avant-garde and free jazz scene reached its full growth, with a central role for pianist Yosuke Yamashita (b. 1942) and his trio. Other Japanese jazz artists who acquired international reputations include Sadao Watanabe (the former soloist of Akiyoshi's Cozy Quartet), Masahiko Satoh, Toru "Tiger" Okoshi and Makoto Ozone. Most of these musicians have toured extensively in the United States and some have moved there permanently for a career in jazz performance or education.