Jazz Nights in Tokyo: A Year Apart
Good drinks and good company meet a night of good music in the city that never sleeps
The shrill howls of the saxophone, cutting through the air with as much clarity as the smooth, refreshing shochu, which runs down your parched throat as if you’re the one doing all the playing — the sets of six-minute, ten-minute long performances with a mix-and-match coterie of people you’ve known for years and those who you’ve only met that very same night.
The steady, low thrums of the bass fill up the hollow spaces left by the high-pitched symphony of wind instruments, beating in time with your slowed heartbeat as the vodka from your second glass of Moscow Mule drench it first in cool bursts, then flood your mind with numbing warmth — much like the music that seeps easily through the spaces between the closely packed bodies, enveloping you in an intimate bubble of golden lights and gold-lit smiles, of strangely familiar silence (of conversation) and cacophony (of perpetual music).
2023 seems, for many people, to mark the actual start of the new decade.
And while I experienced a lot of firsts myself in the second half of 2022 — including having to move to a whole new country by myself, going on my first overnight trip with friends outside of school and parental supervision, and having to quarantine in a 4-star hotel after catching COVID from my share house friend — 2023 gave a lot more surprises as if to continue this trend of increased freedom that comes with slackening social distancing measures and growing out of your teenage phase into the “best” decade of your life (according to people already out of their 20s).
And, as life tends to go, one of these firsts led to another — and, thankfully, a much better one if I do say so myself.
Because as an inherent introvert who’d rather hang out in private with a small selection of really close friends, going to “clubs” (actually one bar with a lot of smoking and pole-dancing, which registers as a club for me) and meeting a lot of strangers who take the idea of “judging a book by its cover” to an extreme are draining enough experiences for me to probably stay out of the scene for a whole lifetime.
Still, I had a dream — well, more like an expectation that isn’t broken yet because of how close to the other end of the spectrum the bar I went to was actually like.
I like drinking as much as the next 20-something-year-old, and I kept coming back to the club-slash-bar for a while even after my first draining experience because my friends (well, one friend specifically, and a very decisive one at that) kept choosing to go back, usually to celebrate the end of someone’s time in Japan (for now).
So, I was itching to fix my bar experience, to find a place where the drinks were reasonably priced (which isn’t that hard in Tokyo, to be honest) and yet wouldn’t make you throw up after three or four glasses because of their cheap quality after dancing the night away.
A place where you can choose to just talk to that one good friend of yours, slipping in comments about how your day or week went in the gaps between the music, where a nod or two in the bartender’s direction and short answers to the usual set of ice breaker questions would suffice in setting up a comfortable atmosphere for the next couple of hours — or more.
A place where the music invites you to listen, to sit still, to sip your drink, and strangers can bond silently over good music, good drinks, and good company without needing to say anything much at all.
My first, ideal bar experience is at a famously understated staple for international tourists: “Jazz Spot Intro” in Takadanobaba introduced me to a whole new world of both music and the bar-hopping experience.
The idea that anyone can join in with their instruments, to slip in a note or two at the soft urging of one of the regular musicians before falling into the familiar flow of the piece, or to enter with a bang and subsequently improvise a long, winding solo to end it on the same high note has got to be the epitome of how music brings people together.
If you can muster up the courage to open the door first, that is.
Tokyo’s buildings (and seemingly Japan’s in general) are known to be multi-dimensional, in the sense that if Google Maps tells you the Family Mart on the right is the correct location of that teishoku restaurant with 300+ good reviews, chances are checking the list of establishments on each floor of the building would tell you how you only need to take the stairs or elevator to reach your lunch spot for the day.
It’s even not uncommon, for example, for one floor to have three or four snack bars alongside an elevator to take you to the lobby of your 3-star accommodation — and this was in Yamagata Prefecture, far enough away from the packed metropolitan city of dear old Tokyo.
Despite knowing that, going down the stairs to the suddenly quiet basement hidden underneath the neon-lit streets of student-populated Takadanobaba, faced with about two more clearly labelled and, thus, more welcoming drinking establishments alongside one hefty, windowless door that left everything to the imagination was still a nerve-wracking moment.
Thankfully, the “master” of the bar opened the door for us, which wasn’t locked after all (or our arms simply lacked strength in our hesitation), and we quickly settled into the still quiet bar where a smattering of apparent regulars were gearing up for their next set.
It didn’t take long for our first set of drinks to arrive either, and for more foreigners and exchange students — some with instrument cases in hand — to fill up the already cozy and cramped bar within the hour.
The music was continuous — people switched out, of course, settling in the smaller tables closest to the “stage” (an otherwise non-demarcated space at the back of the room with a couple of music stands and non-privileging lighting that nearly matched the rest of the room in its brightness) for a deserved sip of their regular, freshly shaken drink on the rocks.
But barely minutes would pass by before they grab their instruments — or one out of their coterie of instruments — again and they’ll be back blowing their lungs out or callousing their fingertips for another set twice or three times as long as their short, short breaks.
But you could tell they didn’t mind. Heck, that they couldn’t wait to get back even.
Saving a spot on the stage for the occasional guest, backing up their still shy playing or nodding along with a wide smile as someone wounds and stretches, coils and skips through a familiar rhythm before going in again at full steam, these apparent “regulars” (the musicians invited to play for the night and probably for many other nights prior and after) seemed to drift towards the stage as easily, as naturally as water floods the available space.
Instruments left standing in place (as in the case of the upright bass) or sitting in still open cases hummed with lingering energy as their owners took a quick break — sipping drinks whilst laughing over shared experiences and inside jokes with the barmaster who naturally, always seemed to be in the know — their promise of new symphonies eventually drawing back the hands that were itching to wield them again like moths to a flame.
But it is in these breaks between the music that a wall gets conjured up again. Largely because of language, but seemingly more so because of familiarity — something that a couple of drinks and a love for music wouldn’t and shouldn’t be expected to break, at least after that one night alone.
My first jazz bar experience took place July of last year, and it was my only experience until this mid-March — a few months short of a year apart.
A part-time job, heavier school workloads that come with being a fourth year, and a lack of friends who can hold their alcohol all contribute to my sudden fasting of the ideal drinking night right after I finally found it.
And it’s perhaps because of that extensive enough gap between visits that the same nervousness that put a wedge in me and my friend’s step visited us again when we came stumbling into another bar-filled basement with yet another, seemingly locked door though this time an actual window on the heavy wooden slab allowed one of the customers — the bar’s bassist for the night — to spot us and invite us to come in after a slight language miscommunication about the place being privately booked for the night.
Unlike Jazz Spot, Koenji’s “MOON STOMP” doesn’t get as much overseas visitors and while the entire bar is about the same size or maybe slightly larger than the former, the number of visitors for the one-and-a-half hours we were there remained the same, with just enough space for people to weasel past the performing artists into the surprisingly spacious bathroom and to weasel back out the door with a bow of thanks in order to catch the ten o’clock train back home.
Nevertheless, it was clear from the bassist’s friendly greeting that everyone was welcome, and the bartender, upon us taking our seats at the counter, began asking the usual ice breaker questions of where we came from and what we’re doing in Japan.
Shyness washed over me when the bartender came around and told this newly shared information to some of the other customers, one of whom was holding a violin and gave a smile in my direction when he learned that I also play though not within the genre.
“Do you know “gypsy jazz?”” The bassist had asked at the door in quiet yet smooth English, with the bartender later explaining in layman terms to us that it originated in France and focused on the acoustic guitar.
With the both of us not that well versed in jazz styles, we nevertheless recognized a few of the tunes, including a rendition of “All of Me” sung in its original English by an apparent regular in a navy-and-red tracksuit and matching cap, who brought with him a case of small wind instruments like the harmonica and others which we could only describe as children’s toys, including a purple rubber whistle that nevertheless wove in seamlessly with the subdued yet resonant acoustics.
A clarinet cut through the end of the first song with a shrill wail, prompting our jack-of-all-trades to do the same on his harmonica and subsequently spit out phrases that the clarinet then tried to emulate in its slower speed and higher register. All the while a voice whooped and shouted from the wall opposite the counter, at once egging them on and reprimanding them for their increasingly adamant competition in cacophony.
In another memorable song, one guitarist in a beret and piercings recited, with a confident, alcohol-on-the-rocks-tinged smile, in Japanese about his daughter who’s going to graduate the day after and how “I love you… from now on, now on, now on.”
Sitting at the counter where the bartender eventually retreated to the back, smoking a cigarette as he too basked in the continuous rhythm and laughter…
Where the violinist too hung back as he shyly, carefully slipped into the music that swayed too enticingly around him the closer he inched towards the stage-that-was-not-a-stage…
Where his two friends, sitting at the table furthest away from the stage and who got up at some point during his performance, stood smiling from the short distance that nevertheless felt too far away from the private world of these musicians —
The musicians encircling the short mic stand that the man in the baseball cap nor the guitarist in the beret hardly needed as they bellowed clearly over the hum of the instruments and the constant “ay-ay-ays” of the voice by the wall…
Music brings everyone together — makes strangers into customers, listeners, and players in its bubble of light and warmth and slight tipsiness.
Yet, there are those who’ve been them longer than others, basking in the indiscriminate brightness lighting up the tables and the stage for many nights on end, and who’ve already made longtime friends through that first commonalities of music and alcohol and the desire for a good time.
And even through all the familiar tunes and the common laughter of everyone on the scene as the once, seemingly subdued clarinet-turned-saxophone player exploded into a two-minute-long solo, there’s still the sense of there being an inside joke — something that you couldn’t quite place a finger on underneath that welcoming first layer of good fun and amusement.
The musicians are family and us, welcomed visitors — but as long as they leave the doors open and welcome us with open arms, then why not drop by for a drink or two, an hour and another?
Why not sit still and enjoy the music with other people in tow where, no matter if it’s the still busy Takadanobaba main street or the quieter inner streets of Koenji, the Tokyo which closes most of its doors at the early hours of eight or nine p.m. still leaves a few backdoors open — as expected of a city that never truly sleeps?
