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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

In part 1 of 2 episodes exploring Japan’s audio scene, vintage audio columnist, Eric Pye discusses Jazz Kissa and Japanese vinyl pressings. In September 2023, vintage columnist Eric Pye (@audioloveyyc ...

“Japanese-influenced listening bars” may be the latest, greatest trend in US bar culture, but their high-end sound systems and even more highfalutin aesthetic draw from a much more humble practice: ...

On April 6, in honor of this year’s National Cherry Blossom Festival, the Freer Gallery of Art will host the third after-hours event in our new Freer Film Fridays series. The evening will include food ...

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 ...

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 ...

Kiyoshi Koyama, widely regarded as Japan’s pre-eminent jazz journalist, who covered the music’s development throughout the 1960s and ’70s before becoming a producer of archival albums, died on Feb. 3 ...