Farewell to a Japan Jazz Icon

Jazz in Japan would like to say farewell to Kiyoshi Koyama  児山紀芳, a noted jazz lover who spent his life, his energy and his being to jazz in Japan. He will be missed. Writer David Gregory attended his funeral and tells us what it means to have lost such a jazz figure.

Farewell to a Japan Jazz Icon

by David Gregory

My wife Kumiko and I set out early from Chiba for Kashiwa during heavy snow, everything outside white, with snow-heavy sakura branches bringing back to mind a slightly sad but full of life mid-tempo solo violin jazz number heard two nights earlier, a beautiful day to attend Koyama Kiyoshi’s funeral.

After I had caught an NHK Radio DJ deeply thanking fellow DJ Koyama-san and finishing her Saturday Jazz Tonight program with that violin tribute, I thought, “Oh, no…maybe he’s gone.” Later Sunday, we confirmed it was true.

Koyama-san had lived with his wife and huge music and jazz musician interview tape collections in Kashiwa City. Why did I feel compelled Sunday to devote the next day to attending a funeral so far away for a man whom I only knew by voice, and who, although linked to jazz, was not even a musician?

A live jazz piano recording playing in the memorial hall entrance and upstairs service room signaled the event might be unusual, and reminded us to remember good times. Signboards posted around the room marked flowers given by clubs, publications, festival organizers, fans, and friends. Musical notes bounced across the front floral display. Video recording and monitors and cameramen gave the somber gathering a slightly wedding-like feeling. Kumiko wondered about a small, strawberry-topped shortcake with a piece cut out and waiting on a plate, both on a table near Koyama-san’s casket. The day would have been his 83rd birthday.

About a hundred other people also came out in the snow that morning to be in that warm room for Koyama-san and his family. We were surprised that we, too, could participate in the incense ritual, but we walked up to the table like everyone else to touch the grains to our foreheads three times, drop them into the smoldering urns, and offer our prayers with bowed heads and raised hands together.

After the incense and the first hour’s priest chants, the messages read aloud from musicians, big music company executives, club owners, and radio listeners all over Japan awoke us to how widely Koyama-san had touched lives, and how many like us were feeling something missing from our world. But, although wonderful, and sometimes saddening, that did not trigger crying. That happened next.

Those first few notes of “Round Midnight,” the Miles Davis version, performed by a trumpet and piano duo up front, did it: Instant recognition¾the cut Koyama-san used to open Jazz Tonight¾recollections, sighs around the room, eyes closed, arms crossed, heads dropped back or down, and tears, at least for me. How many times had we heard, after Miles breathed his somber opening, Koyama-san’s low, gravelly voice welcoming us into the studio with, “Minna-san, go-kigen ikaga desho-ka everyone, how are you feeling?”¾and never thought that someday we would hear him ask us no more?

Koyama-san’s widow took her place alone behind the casket and bowed in silence to everyone in turn after they each placed a flower around his body, and the duo continued with another slow number, the trumpet sounding strong and crisp and unusual in a memorial service hall. After we placed our flowers, she responded to my hand on her shoulder, a touch just meant to console her, by immediately turning and reaching for me¾a total stranger¾burying her face in my chest, and breaking down into sobs. All I could do was stand there, with my own head bowed, and give her the hug everybody needs sometimes. After her respite, when she was ready to face the casket and everyone else again, she let returned to her position. Going to Kashiwa in a snowstorm was worth it just for those few moments.

The music ended. Most guests hurried downstairs to wait in the cold for the casket to be brought out and slid into the long, dark Cadillac bound for the crematorium. Kumiko and I lingered upstairs behind the rear seat rows to watch the ceremony’s final acts: The last looks at Koyama-san’s face, the lid lifted onto the casket, and the family members passing around a small hammer to tap the nails in.

The snow had stopped and was already melting. Kashiwa’s air tasted fresh, clean, as always after snow. But, why, I still wondered, had I wanted to go?

Showing up in Kashiwa for Koyama-san and family would show he mattered to at least me; that is why.

Koyama-san on Jazz Tonight I had listened to since…I do not exactly know when. Around 2000, maybe earlier. All those years, while my life in Japan was filled with huge uncertainties, he was there Saturday nights on the radio, reliable, keeping me connected to the world’s music and opening my ears to music from Japan I would not know without him. Listening to him, his old, new, and always intriguing track selections, and his musician guests in the studio always made me feel good, no matter what had happened in my life during the week, or what was coming up in the weeks ahead. That respite I sometimes still need, and…he is gone. How can I replace that comfort he gave?

At least I could give back a little in Kashiwa.

So, Koyama-san, thank you for helping this foreigner feel good in Japan. Please rest well in jazz heaven.

NHK Radio, thank you for giving Koyama-san a way to connect with us. Please encourage other DJs to continue doing what he did so well.

And Koyama-san’s family: Please care well for yourselves now, and thank you for supporting Kiyoshi and sharing him with us.

David Gregory, Chiba, Japan

Via Chicago, USA

March 11, 2019

The Japan Times offers an interview and The New York Times a solid obituary.

The Japan Times: Kiyoshi Koyama: A life lived with jazz

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/03/29/music/kiyoshi-koyama-life-lived-jazz/#.XGYq_yOLRFQ