I’d been meaning to listen to this episode of the Tokyo Jazz Joints podcast but a friend of mine recommending the site the other day finally got me to listen. Before the plague, I had become a “regular customer” at Narcissus — if regular customer means the owner remembered who I was when I came in once every few months. The other jazz kissa I used to go to in Tokyo, Mary Jane, closed when the neighborhood it was in was redeveloped.

I know very little about jazz other than I like to listen to it. I do like the atmosphere at jazz cafes. So the podcast brought back some nice memories when one could go to a small cafe in a crowded neighborhood and the biggest concern was worrying about navigating the touts outside — or if I had forgot something at the Okinawan restaurant where I would eat dinner, as I did the first time I went to Narcissus. (Fun fact, if you do that your chances of being remembered at a coffee shop increase greatly.)