Activities per year
Abstract
For all the symbols that Japan evokes in the popular imagination, it is safe to say that jazz music probably comes far down the list for most – if indeed it even ranks at all. And yet, Japan has been a hotbed for the evolution of jazz culture since pre-World War II. After 1945 these seeds blossomed in the explosion across the country of jazz kissa – the uniquely Japanese phenomenon of dedicated jazz listening spaces. Remarkably, despite the growing global interest in Japan’s listening culture, driven in part by the worldwide revival in vinyl and analogue audio equipment, jazz kissa did not register on the Japanese government’s ‘Cool Japan’ radar. On the contrary, they remain othered spaces in Japan, that are symbolic of a diminishing material culture, still worthy of suspicion. Due to changing tastes, ageing owners, urban gentrification and lack of heritage preservation, jazz kissa are at risk of vanishing altogether from the country’s musical landscape. Through the prism of the Tokyo Jazz Joints project, an audiovisual document of Japan's jazz kissa culture created by photographer Philip Arneill and broadcaster James Catchpole, this visual paper will reframe the deep and meaningful relationship between Japan and jazz music, something that is only beginning to properly receive the international recognition it deserves. Using images from the Tokyo Jazz Joints project it will demonstrate the way in which Japan not only embraced a new and foreign musical genre, but subsequently enshrined it through the creation of a nationwide network of pseudo-religious spaces that are temples to jazz culture.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 14 Jul 2023 |
Event | Symbols of Japan, Japan as Symbols: An Interdisciplinary Workshop. - Cardiff University , Cardiff , United Kingdom Duration: 13 Jul 2023 → 14 Jul 2023 |
Workshop
Workshop | Symbols of Japan, Japan as Symbols: An Interdisciplinary Workshop. |
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Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
City | Cardiff |
Period | 13/07/23 → 14/07/23 |
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of ''What’s jazz got to do with it?' Reframing international perceptions of Japan through the Tokyo Jazz Joints project.'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Activities
- 2 Invited talk
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Exploring Jazz Through Photography
Philip Arneill (Speaker)
20 Apr 2022Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
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Podcast: Centre for Irish Studies at Villanova University, PA
Philip Arneill (Speaker)
22 Aug 2022Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
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Tokyo Jazz Joints: Philip Arneill, with James Catchpole
Arneill, P., 1 Jul 2023, Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag. 168 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book › peer-review
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These Are a Few of My Favourite Things
Arneill, P., 4 Jul 2022, In: Intersections (Postgraduate Journal - Arts , Humanities , Social Sciences). 3, p. 66-69 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Upright Men Seeking Upright Man: Pithecanthropus Erectus, Tokyo, Japan
Arneill, P., 1 Dec 2022, In: Jazz & Culture. 5, 2, p. 95-99 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
Press/Media
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One kissa is all it takes: Tokyo’s finest jazz haunts – in pictures
5/10/23
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Public Engagement Activities
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Japanese Jazz Kissa: The Jazz Show with Jamie Cullum
26/09/23
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Public Engagement Activities
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Belfast-born photographer Philip Arneill’s latest project
20/05/23
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research