The Tokyo jazz scene has quite a reputation in the world, but sometimes you can find a venue extraordinarily amazing even to the city’s high standards. If today you want to see something very peculiar and still do not have plans, stop reading this text, grab a coat and go to Roppongi station, where on the crossing near Roppongi Hills you will find the avant-garde-art center, Super Deluxe. You might want to check the schedule on the official site, but do not be turned off if you do not recognize any of the day’s performances. In most cases the event in Super Deluxe is a complete mystery, sometimes even for the artists themselves!
There is no favorite genre or form of art in Super Deluxe. It can be anything from a mind-blowing noise-festival to a quiet jazz-pop concert or a performance by an artist improvising visual objects to the live music. The design of the place is not like one of your typical jazz venues and most resembles a small art-gallery, giving you just the right unobtrusive ambiance to enjoy your evening. Plain concrete walls are used as a giant screen when it comes to cinema or video-art installation accompanying the music show. To diffuse the boundary between artist and audience, the scene is not marked out and sometimes performers simplywander around the hall playing the instruments. I once was at a show where the members of a twenty-person band stepped in for one another from their seats among the audience during a non-stop live set. At some point the audience may well become a part of the show, improvising along with the musicians, and if you have a chance join freely.
Going to this club for some intellectual pleasures, I was not expecting the quality of food and drinks to be this high – rice curry (800 yen) is a fine example of popular Asian-fusion cuisine and a local microbrew Tokyo Ale (700 yen) is one of the best in town. With food like that and a variety of cocktails and wines, you cannot help to wonder how the place can truly be a feast both for your body and soul!
More or less every month they hold a Test Tone event, when musicians and artists from different spheres gather to create a completely unpredictable piece of art. The doors are left open for everyone on the day of this event – there is no entrance fee – so if you are not sure whether you are ready for some highbrow improvisation-noise or contemporary art just drop by and see for yourself. Even if you think of yourself as a person of more conservative tastes, to try something different at least once is a very good idea, especially when you are in a foreign country and your mind is open to everything new. The atmosphere is friendly and very multicultural, so even if your Japanese is not perfect you will not get bored as both audience and artists are always eager to talk.
