Japanese memory collection.
Japan, april 2017.
In a forgettable bar of Tbilisi in late 2019 I met a Japanese man. In few words he told me he is a jazz drummer, that he writes for an obscure magazine with an untranslatable name, was he writes also has remained untranslated. He does not care. He did not tell me his name either.
Our brief exchange brought me back to Japan, where I spent several weeks, roaming around.
Unfortunately most of the pictures and other memorabilia I collected have been lost or stolen.
When I was away from my Tokyo friends A. and M., I indulged my trip in jazz bars and whiskey, this time in Kyoto.
This is a brief telegraphic account of my roamings, unideted from my notebook.
Kyoto, 24 of April, 2017
Whiskey. Jazz. A small origami crane bird as a gift from the waitress at the listening bar. An exchange of words in Italian with someone. A small dinner in a small place. Small talks with a drunken group. An annoyed waiter. An phone call in Italian with a Japanese teacher who happens to be friend of one of the drunken people. The incredible silence of the road to my hotel.
The next day:
The temple. The graveyards. The cherry blossom. The twisted branches of twisted trees. An old lady taking a picture of her old lover in front of the temple. Me being asked to take their picture together (he was not very pleased with the photo). They were completely in love. They have blossom again.
Uphill to the graveyard.
I don’t know any of you
and neither you know me
yet you are at peace
in order
like stones.
Osaka, 26 of April, 2017
It is raining. I am lost in the city, am in a bad mood, I rest, I walk again, I eat in a sort of restaurant in which you cannot sit, a naked cat is painted on the walls. I drink Sake with ice in company of old men. I am on my way to a jazz concert. I am already tipsy. I grab another beer.
The jazz concert:
A bass player, a piano player, a guy who smokes, a very old and elegant lady sitting next to me, a caring waitress: three listeners, two players, one waitress, the jazz.
This are just fragments, too brief too be considered poetic, but they evoke intimate memories now engulfed in smoke, they might fade away with each piano note.
After some years I will ask myself the same question that I answer today as half an ignorant: what is jazz music?
:jazz is an hedonistic person, a tiny bit naughty, is a rebel that does not take anything and anyone seriously. It does not get old because is never old. Is not pedantic yet is quite arrogant. Is not presumptuous, does not need to show off to anyone. Is romantic because is not attached to any feeling yet is highly passionate. Is solitary yet enjoys being in a party.
I started talking to the lady next to me: she is the owner of the biggest collection of Japanese pottery, Mrs Tanaka-Maru.
She financed the concert. We talked about Italy, about art, my friends in Tokyo, about the first sterile ideas that came up to our mind during the intermezzo, brief laughs. Her English was as good as my japanese. She secretly payed my drinks, for everybody's.
She felt like a long distant friend from another life, the one you would enjoy to meet in anonymous places only, away from the pains and silliness of society, away from art markets.
The whiskey was excellent, the music superb, the atmosphere similar to the one of a newly renovated purgatory where heaven is envious of waiting, or of a incredible musical limbo: the rest of the city was shadowed, silenced, covered in heavy rain.
The other guy did not stop smoking nor sharing friendly yet silent remarks with his good friend the bassist.
The waitress was the pianist wife, she owned the place.