Bon Courage jazz club, located near Suidobashi and Korakuen stations in Tokyo, Japan (website, map).
Bon Courage is a simple and easy-going jazz room newly opened in 2020 in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The impetus for opening Bon Courage (aka “Bon Kura”) was to encourage and support musicians and the arts during that difficult period, thus, bon courage (have courage, good luck) was meant as much for encouraging the musicians as well as the general public and audience. It’s a sentiment that can no doubt also be directed to the brave entrepreneurs who opened such shops in the middle of unpredictable health emergencies as well.
The no-frills room is structured as a sort of mini-theater for live musicians and film events. The programming schedule contains live jazz events, cinema, and other drama-related acts. The live jazz shows often are made up of local musicians who are hand-selected and arranged into groups by the owner, who also operates the business and can be found with his pup Pascal on many days and nights at Bon Courage.
Bon Courage features a stage taking up about half of the room, and three rows of about eight fixed-in-placer classroom-style or simple movie theater seats facing the stage. These bare-bone seats even have built-in slide-away side tables complete with pencil trays and cup recesses.
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