Popular Music From The Land Of The Rising Sun
The History of J-Pop Music
A Forming Pop Sound
In the late 1920’s Japan was recovering from economic hardship following the first World War and the Tokyo Earthquake of 1923. Despite the turmoil following the war, Japan was still heavily connected to the international community. One element of soft power included their student exchange programs.
Former jazz students from the Tokyo Music School who visited San Francisco during this decade were inspired by the jazz music they heard. Upon their return, these student musicians practiced and performed western-influenced jazz music. This distinct roaring twenties version of jazz was free-spirited and danceable. Soon, jazz bands started popping up across cities in Japan and dance halls opened up by the dozen.
The Japanese government, slowly militarizing and becoming more nationalist, seen this popular western music negatively influencing their youth. Thereafter, they started cracking down and closing dance halls across the country. Innovative jazz musicians like Koichi Sugii and Hideo Shiraki worked around this challenge and made culturally Japanese jazz music by adjusting its sound and theme. Therefore, Japanese jazz music became rooted in Japanese folk music and their notational history.
