Discover the real Tokyo at its listening cafés

Down a small set of stone steps, tucked behind the Hakusan train station in Tokyo, is the Eigakan Jazz listening café. As the wooden door swings open, a wall of sensuous sound surges forward.

The listening café – or jazz kissa – is run by Yoshida Masahiro and his partner Kinuko Watanabe. At one end of the small, dark space is an enormous sound-system, hand-built by Yoshida-san sometime in the 1970s. An equaliser flickers above an old cash register.