In May 2025 Japan welcomed an estimated 3.693 million visitors, marking a surge in global fascination with the country—up 125% (more than double!) compared to a decade ago. Many come for the exquisite ...

With this year's International Jazz Day concert taking place in Osaka, an East Asian historian (a musician himself) describes how the music came... If you've witnessed a headlining performance from ...

When James Catchpole and I meet in Jazz Eagle, a basement cafe in central Tokyo’s Yotsuya neighborhood, our conversation is squashed within seconds. As a New Yorker and a Northern Irishman, perhaps we ...

My friend Rhonda Laurie is a swinging jazz singer (Sidewalk Café and more), music business instructor and underground promoter. Right now she's trying to put together a fundraising event to support ...

One night in a Japanese jazz kissa changed music listening for me forever. My love for the jazz piano trio began in the most unique way possible. Every now and then, a listening session turns into ...

If you wander through the alleys of a Japanese city, you might be so lucky as to stumble upon a jazz kissa, a café-bar where ...

Their latest opening, a jazz kissa (Japanese for “cafe”), opened this past summer, with live jazz shows a few nights of the week and DJs playing records until the early hours. Teder FM got its start ...

The recent natural disasters in Japan, and the scale of the resulting devastation, leave even those of us far outside the country with a sense of sadness and loss. We are bound by humanity, but also ...