Japan Record Shopping, Part Two: In Search of Jazz Bars and Vinyl

By Steven Frost

I was really pleasantly surprised when the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Kyoto to Osaka arrived at Osaka Central Station after no more than a 15-20 minute ride. We put our stuff in the room and headed out for Minami, one of Osaka’s main commercial areas, adjacent to Little America, an Osaka neighborhood with a reputation for being young and cool. Minami was the first place I’d been in Japan that wasn’t spotless, and it was super touristy and overcrowded. My daughter quickly became consumed with shopping, with my wife in a supporting role, but my threshold for clothes shopping, while longer than when marriage first began rubbing off all my sharp edges, is still limited. I put “jazz bar” into Google Maps and lo and behold, there was a hit a mere three minute walk down the main shopping drag and up a side street to Jazz Bar Top Rank. I did my now well- rehearsed up and down the street “where the hell is this place?” before finding the staircase and heading to the second floor.

The jazz bar/coffee house concept is something well known in Japan. It is well described here http://tokyojazzsite.com/tokyo-yokohama-jazz-spots-bars-clubs-cafes-shops-introduction/

This was the first time I visited one. The typical business model is $7-$10 drinks with an additional cover charge. These establishments and many other restaurants are cash only. When I walked in I was pleasantly surprised to see a No Smoking sign behind the bar. The proprietor was playing a CD by a female Japanese saxophonist on a nice Marantz disc player, Marantz vintage tube amp and a pair of JBL 101’s. He also had a several vintage turntables, and other pairs of speakers.

Marantz CD players seemed to be the digital delivery vehicle of choice everywhere and direct drive turntables are also very popular. Vintage JBL loudspeakers, particularly the large 4300 series monitors with blue front panels are also widely seen. After the CD playing when I arrived was over the owner played several LP’s while I enjoyed the time drinking cold Yebisu beer and looking at thousands of records and the jazz ephemera he had obviously collected over a lifetime. I thought to myself that if I could retreat to such a cool spot whenever my wife and daughter went shopping at home I’d drive them to go out shopping all the time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once wife and daughter finished their shopping expedition and dragged me away from the bar, we headed to American Village where I had been told by friends I could find many record stores. I played the iPhone Google Maps where-the-hell-is-it game again before finding a another hidden doorway with steps leading to a number of stores upstairs. Here I came across no records that I wanted, but did find the Osaka Records map which lists no less than 30 stores. Here is a shot of one interior page to give you an idea about the richness and breadth of Osaka’s record culture.

 

While American Village was a bust for me, the next evening we went to the Umeda area where I visited Disk Union Osaka. Across from the store I visited is another large Disk Union that only sells classical music. There is something very positive and hopeful about being in a record store with many other shoppers also passionate about music and records. Disk Union was really busy and there were at least five other people seriously perusing the jazz titles. Like my experience in Tokyo’s Disk Union shops, Disk Union Osaka’s prices and selection were remarkable. The jazz section in the Disk Union Osaka store is enormous, bins along two walls and a record wall with many gems. I bought a nice, original New Jazz Teddy Charles ND quartet 10” with J.R. Monterose, something that I’d wanted for some time. I also bought the German J.R. Monterose- Body & Soul live LP with Jon Eardley and a stack of Japanese reissues (Prestige, Riverside, Blue Note, Disques Vogue) that were all priced inexpensively and in immaculate condition. I like that Disk Union uses an AB scale for grading (perhaps because I’m an educator) and notes on the pricing strip why the record has received its given grade. That said, B is the lowest grade I ever saw here, and even the B records are at least what we call VG+. I did not want an opportunity to visit Japan to only be about records, and I scored such a heavy stack at Disk Union, that I decided that was enough record shopping for Osaka. There were a couple of other stores I would like to visit, particularly Jazz Records Seeed, but it will need to wait until next time.

Our furthest stop south on our east coast journey through Japan was in Takamatsu, located in the northeastern part of Fukuoka, a couple of hours by train south of Osaka. The draw here is Takamatsu’s proximity to the art island of Naoshima, which is fantastic, particularly if you like great art and architecture in idyllic natural surroundings. I discovered another jazz record bar in Takamatsu, with the requisite enormous JBL monitors, and a really nice store called Roots Records.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roots Records had a great extensive selection of jazz records covering every period from the early fifties through the eighties and also a really large selection of fusion if that is your thing. Again, I found really well cared for records at very reasonable prices. There were a couple of other promising stores in Takamatsu that I didn’t make it to. There is also a really nice live venue in Takamatsu called Speak Low, that was unfortunately closed for a construction project while I was there.

My record bag, an ugly Shure DJ bag bought on closeout that worked brilliantly for its task, was already unwieldy by this point in the trip. Our plan was to spend a few days in Hakone, a glorious mountain area outside Tokyo that has great museums, hot springs and hiking, and then head to metropolitan Tokyo for four or five days at the end of the trip. I’ll do a final post on metropolitan Tokyo, try to address some of the questions/observations in the JC comments section and reflect on some final takeaways from Japan.