During the Pacific War, jazz was banned in Japan because it was considered the enemy's music. But what did that mean? Not much in places such as a certain disreputable hotel-cum-boarding house in the port city of Kobe on the south coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. Here, in this warren-like structure, "painted red like some cheap theater," raucous jazz was often heard.
The residents of the hotel were a motley crew, according to a newly published memoir. There was an impoverished Egyptian butcher who had occasional windfalls that coincided with a cow disappearing somewhere. There were a dozen "good time girls," including a middle-aged White Russian, who plied their trade in the watering holes of Kobe.
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