Write-up 9 -- Lazybird, the jazz bar (3/17/12)

Lazy bird... what kind of image do you get from this? Maybe a bird sitting in a nest yawning with no motivation to get out and try to get that worm early in the morning.

For jazz fans, these two words bring to mind John Coltrane as you can hear it on the ever-so-famous album Blue Train (Blue Note records 1957).

Sake

For jazz fans in Sapporo, Japan, it brings to mind a small and quaint jazz bar/club in the North 24 area.

北垣

The bar opened a bit over seven years ago (it’s March 19th, 2012 now) and is still managing to stay in business due to the hard work of the owner. Owning a jazz bar in Sapporo is a tough business, trying to gather customers and organizing musicians to play, but necessary.

The owner, Naoshi Yoshida (just call him “Master”), was a business man many years ago and then one day he gave up his job (quite a good one at that time) and started his own bar. It was a dark, small and dingy shop called Groovy. With an impressive collection of four-thousand or more albums, it was always fun to make requests or just let the Master put on whatever albums he pulled out. Every month there would be one live concert there, jamming many people in the bar.

Groovy was the perfect hiding place. You’d have to walk down one of the North 24 area’s alleys and walk up ten or so small stairs, and there would be this big wooden door. Nothing fancy... just a sign with a drum kit, the name of the bar and “Jazz and Booze” written at the bottom.

People in audience

I still remember my first time in the bar. I couldn’t speak much Japanese then. I sat down and ordered a beer and the customer next to me asked me about English prepositions.  The Master could speak some English and I got interested in the atmosphere quickly.

The main clientele at this bar were business men who wanted to unwind, drag on a few cigarettes and sip booze from their bottle-keep (Japan has a system where you buy and pour your own bottle -- mathematically it save money but then you tend to drink too much -- is it a good system?). I had many good conversations with various people there and after a while I was sipping booze from my bottle-keep (Japanese shochu), making myself a fully-fledged member.

So now Lazy bird (LB) comes into the picture. The Master decided to open this place a bit over seven years ago. I guess the timing must’ve been right and he was able to find a place that was big enough. Groovy was located three stores away from LB so if there were any problems or if any orders had to be taken back and forth, the Master could run over quickly.

LB used to be a sushi bar so the whole interior had to be remodeled. A new counter, new walls, new flooring, etc. were added. It must’ve been quite the project. A grand piano was bought and well over a hundred bottles of booze were placed behind the counter.

The interior is spacious enough. There’s a long counter with about twelve seats and a few tables for people who want to chit-chat when there aren’t live concerts. The lighting is dark but not so dark that you have to squint when reading something.

At first LB wasn’t really a place to listen to jazz. It was a cocktail bar with a bartender with a bow-tie. There were live concerts every other week and a pianist playing “light” background music on Fridays. After about three years and many bartenders later, the Master decided to close Groovy, move all the albums to Lazy bird and make it a bar/jazz club.

Since then, LB has hosted some of the best concerts in Sapporo. Using his old connections with various Tokyo musicians, there have been many great concerts over the years. There are also performances on a regular basis featuring Sapporo’s finest musicians and to ensure a healthy jazz future in Sapporo the master started to organize University student performances. I’m sure these young students will be playing here for years to come. 

Depending on scheduling there are performances two or more times a week (check the webpage).

http://lazybird-groovy.com/

It’s a neat place and the Master is full of knowledge. Hopefully someday you’ll be able to drop by.

Master - After


札幌 ジャズ ライブ Lazybird Sapporo Jazz Scene Bars Clubs

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