This is an evening of classic, rare, and exceptional jazz from Japan, all played on vinyl. DJ Tony Higgins digs deep into his own record collection and plays a selection spanning the 1950s-1980s, an era that saw Japanese jazz develop at an astonishing rate and scale. Expect to hear modal, post-bop, jazz funk, fusion, spiritual jazz, hard bop, and much more.

Tony has a background in music/artist/ management, music press/media, and promotion. He worked on landmark BBC TV documentaries including 'Jazz Britannia' and 'Seven Ages of Rock', and produced a live concert film in Los Angeles with multi-Grammy-winning singer Emmylou Harris. He is a consultant to several specialist record labels such as Gilles Peterson's Brownswood/ARC, BBE, Universal/Decca, and Eating Standing/SeriE WOC, providing sleeve notes and producing deep archive jazz reissues.

Since 2018, together with friend Mike Peden, Tony has worked with UK label BBE, curating four 'J Jazz' compilations of Japanese modern jazz and producing numerous full album reissues in the 'J Jazz Masterclass Series'. Tony's most recent project with Mike and BBE has been the book 'J Jazz: Free and Modern Jazz Albums from Japan 1954-1988', a full-colour 400-page guide to 500 jazz records made in Japan. 

Alongside his work with BBE on 'J Jazz', Tony is executive producer for the 'British Jazz Explosion' series for Universal Music/Decca, reissuing the best and rarest British jazz from the 1960s and 1970s. Tony has also worked closely with DJ/Broadcaster Gilles Peterson's Arc label producing a series of deluxe reissues by Max Roach, Yusef Lateef and Roberta Flack. 

Tony's record collection has been amassed over forty years and encompasses jazz, funk, soul, reggae, Latin, disco, hip hop and house, as well as psych, rock, folk and pop. He also collects - and DJs - original 78rpm shellac discs of jump blues, black rock n roll, blues and jazz from the 1940s - 1950s.

Please note The Jazz Social is a pop-up venue with mixed standing / seated. Limited seating operates on a first come first serve basis with no reservations. For more information on accessibility access head to the bottom of The Jazz Social page.