Satou-san was very connected in the local music scene and would often take me to various live folk music events going on. It was a wonderful experience, participating in a musical culture that I was familiar with but had only ever read about in academic papers while simultaneously recognizing that my Japanese had progressed enough to facilitate these connections. I went to many wonderful venues with Satou-san but one I hold especially dear.
It was a Jazz bar. They were hosting an “american Jazz night” and I was invited to attend. When we arrived I saw it was a small, intimate place, with only 10 or 15 people in the whole bar. The bar’s owner, or ‘mama-san’ as she insisted I call her, was a friendly woman who used to be a well-known singer herself but decided to quasi-retire and open her own bar where her friends can get together and make music. It seems this was one of those nights, everybody knew each other, and I was informed by Satou-san that they all had separate jobs, none were professional musicians, but a shared love of music brought them to this space. It was interesting, hearing that the man shredding the harmonica on stage was actually an art history lecturer at Osaka University, but it was reinforced by love of music as something accessible to almost everyone, no matter what profession or walk of life.
It was funny, all the songs played were ones I knew (it being an American Jazz night), when they started playing Frank Sinatra I began unconsciously humming along, my brain primed from karaoke nights with my grandmother. Satou-san and Mama-san noticed me and in a spectacular turn of fate asked me to come up and sing. They were about to play New York, New York, it seemed only fitting I go sing about my home state. I was honestly apprehensive about singing in a Jazz bar surrounded by strangers, but they’re not strangers, I thought to myself, they’re fellow lovers of music. I psyched myself up, reminding myself that I had flown all the way over here from the US and to take advantage of all the opportunities to not just learn about other cultures but share your own, and what better way to share your culture than through your love of music? Noticing my fear, Satou-san said he’d come up with me, that he would play his ukelele, he didn’t know the chords but we could stumble through it together.
And so I went up, nervous at first, and sang my little heart out.
I forgot my fear and simply enjoyed myself in what I think is my favorite moment of intercultural communication I’ve ever engaged in. Here I was, in a Jazz bar 2000 miles away from home, singing the same songs I used to as a girl with my grandma, with a friend I met by chance in a cafe because I was brave enough to be curious. Music is special to me, it connects people from disparate cultures, it encourages people to express themselves, it shares culture and identity.
To me, there are few things as wonderful in this world as music, and I’m so happy I got to re-learn all the reasons I love music in this little Jazz bar in Japan.
