Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week have been public holidays. For the first two of those days, a Jazz festival was held in Takatsuki. Jazz bands were set up all over town, on street corners, in parks, and in the evening, in the pubs. On the Tuesday, Hunter and I just went shopping, and listened to some of the music in passing. On the Wednesday, we joined up with Jess and Andrea to eat lunch in the park and listen to the music there. The next act was just setting up as we arrived. Listening to the first song, I was thinking that the overall feel of the song sounded suspiciously Gospel. Then, suddenly, I heard "Jesus" mixed into the Japanese, and then a few "Oh Lord"s. So yes, it was Gospel music, something I was definitely not expecting to hear at a Jazz festival in a country where less than 1% of the population identifies as being Christian. It proved to be quite entertaining though. For example, one time, I was sure I heard "fist at me", when it was in fact "set you free", and during "Ain't no Mountain High Enough" I was laughing through most of the song due to the extremely vague pronunciation of a large group of singers.
In the evening we experienced some (not very good) jazz, and some (better) "black" music (whatever that genre is supposed to mean), but the amount of cigarette smoke in the packed room rather killed it for me and Hunter, so we didn't last too long.
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