iPod generation tunes out of Japanese jazz culture

YOKOHAMA, Japan, Jan 28 (Reuters) Once a haven for Japan's earliest jazz fans, cafe Chigusa is packing up its thousands of vinyl records.

''These days, kids don't listen to jazz, and they walk down the street with iPods, which makes the whole idea of 'place' irrelevant,'' says Michael Molasky, author of ''The Jazz Culture of Postwar Japan''.

Seventy-three years after first opening its doors, Chigusa, among the oldest and the most cherished of Japan's jazz coffee shops, has become a victim of the electronic revolution.

For its patrons, mostly male and alone, the cafe was a place of learning and of comfort. The unspoken rules, which they followed faithfully, included listening to the music in silence and waiting in turn to make a request, jotting it down on a scrap of paper. And no alcohol or snapping fingers.

''Filled with sound, smoke, and hundreds of records, jazz coffee houses used to be a space for young people who came looking for a proper understanding of the music,'' says Molasky, professor of Asian languages and literature at the University of Minnesota.

Chigusa enjoyed a glorious epoch in the 1960s and early 70s, when students and musicians gathered to listen to imported albums that were otherwise beyond their means.

''Now we only have about 10 regulars, who've been coming for years,'' says Masatomi Kaneshige, a 65-year-old retiree who often helps out at the cafe.

''Young people hardly come here. This place must look so strange and dark to them, with old men sitting quietly, sipping coffee and listening to vibrant jazz.'' JAZZ BOOM But on its last Saturday in business, the small cafe was full from before its official opening at noon. Around the six tiny tables sat 10 customers, half familiar faces and the rest newcomers -- both young and old -- who came for their first and last Chigusa experience after hearing about its closure.

Kaneshige gazed at the 40 record covers pasted on Chigusa's walls and pointed at the signed copy of Bill Evans Trio's bestselling ''Waltz for Debby,'' a favourite, he recalls, of the cafe's founder, Mamoru Yoshida, who passed away 13 years ago.

Chigusa, soon to be replaced by a new building complex, was opened in 1937 by 20-year-old Yoshida, who fell in love with jazz at public dance halls and began collecting imported records.

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