iPod generation deletes Japanese jazz culture  

Once a haven for Japan's earliest jazz fans, cafe Chigusa is packing up its thousands of vinyl records.

"These days, kids don't listen to jazz, and they walk down the street with iPods, which makes the whole idea of `place' irrelevant," says Michael Molasky, author of "The Jazz Culture of Postwar Japan".

Seventy-three years after fi rst opening its doors, Chigusa, among the oldest and the most cherished of Japan's jazz coffee shops, has become a victim of the electronic revolution.

For its patrons, mostly male and alone, the cafe was a place of learning and of comfort. The unspoken rules, which they followed faithfully, included listening to the music in silence and waiting in turn to make a request, usually by jotting it down on a scrap of paper. And no alcohol or snapping of fingers.