During the U.S. occupation of Okinawa (1945–1972), jazz musicians performed largely on American military bases, where musical labor was organized along racial and military hierarchies. These musicians mastered American swing and big band styles to meet the expectations of U.S. audiences, often suppressing local cultural expression in favor of sonic mimicry. Following the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972 and the collapse of base entertainment, many musicians were forced out of professional performance, yet jazz persisted through informal sessions, small clubs, and intergenerational mentorship. This paper examines the historical transformation of jazz in Okinawa from a form of military entertainment under U.S. occupation to a locally rooted cultural practice known today as “Uchinā jazz.”

Drawing on oral history interviews with first- and later-generation Okinawan jazz musicians, archival research and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Okinawa, I show how jazz has been continually reshaped by shifting political, economic, and cultural conditions on the islands since 1945. I argue that Okinawan jazz has undergone a process of sonic reclamation. Musicians increasingly integrate Ryukyuan folk melodies, indigenous scales, and themes of war memory and peace into jazz performance, reframing the genre as a medium of cultural belonging rather than imported entertainment. By situating Okinawan jazz within broader debates on cultural hybridity, globalization, and postcolonial musical exchange, this study complicates center-periphery models of jazz globalization. It demonstrates how a genre shaped by asymmetrical power relations can be reappropriated to articulate local histories, intergenerational memory, and Okinawan cultural identity in a global context.