青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

Over his time in Japan, Belfast-born photographer Philip Arneill found himself drawn by the fascination of one decidedly Japanese twist on jazz culture: the jazz kissa, or café, where aficionados listen to vinyls or talk jazz with their fellows over a cup of coffee. In 2015 he and a friend, the American broadcaster and writer James Catchpole, embarked on a quest to document these rapidly vanishing icons of urban culture. The “Tokyo Jazz Joints” project has since taken the pair to jazz kissa and bars not only in that city but all up and down the archipelago, including such hallowed legends as Eagle and Pithecanthropus Erectus in Tokyo, Basie in Iwate, Jazz Spot Yamatoya in Kyoto, and Down Beat in Yokohama.

Those beguiling hideaways come to life in this book, originally issued by the German publisher Kehrer Verlag in 2023 to worldwide acclaim and now back in a Japanese edition with new original features.

Philip Arneill is a Belfast-born documentary photographer and writer with a master’s degree in photojournalism and documentary photography from the University of Arts London. He has published work in a variety of media and held group and solo exhibitions around the world. He is currently pursuing a doctorate at Ulster University under a studentship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Northern Bridge Consortium.