is a Japanese American jazz pianist, composer/arranger and bandleader. Among a very few successful female instrumentalists of her generation in jazz, she is also recognized as a major figure in jazz composition. She has received 14 Grammy nominations, and she was the first woman to win the Best Arranger and Composer awards in Down Beat
magazine's Readers Poll. In 1984, she was the subject of a documentary film titled Jazz Is My Native Language
. In 1996, she published her autobiography, Life With Jazz
and in 2007 she was named an NEA Jazz Master by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.
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TOSHIKO AKIYOSHI TICKETS
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Biography
Akiyoshi was born in
Liaoyang,
Manchuria to
Japanese
emigrants. She was the youngest of four sisters. In 1945, after
World War II, Akiyoshi's family lost its home and returned to Japan, settling in
Beppu.
Akiyoshi began to study
piano at age seven. When she was 16, she took a job playing with a band in a local club. Beppu was crowded with
US soldiers, and musicians were in high demand to provide entertainment. Akiyoshi had planned to attend
medical school, but she loved playing piano; and since she was earning good money, her family didn't object to her pursuing music.
A local record collector introduced Akiyoshi to jazz by playing a
record of
Teddy Wilson playing "
Sweet Lorraine." Akiyoshi immediately loved the sound, and began to study jazz. In 1952, during a tour of Japan, pianist
Oscar Peterson discovered Akiyoshi playing in a club on the
Ginza. Peterson was impressed, and convinced
producer Norman Granz to record Akiyoshi. In 1953, under Granz's direction, Akiyoshi recorded her first album with Peterson's rhythm section:
Herb Ellis on
guitar,
Ray Brown on
bass, and
J. C. Heard on
drums. The album was titled
Toshiko's Piano
, and has since been reissued on
CD.
In 1955, Akiyoshi wrote a letter to
Lawrence Berk asking him to give her a chance to study at his school,
Berklee College of Music. After a year of wrangling with the
State Department and Japanese officials, Berk secured permission for Akiyoshi to study in
Boston. He offered her a full scholarship, and he mailed her a plane ticket to Boston. In January 1956, Akiyoshi enrolled to become the first Japanese student at Berklee. (As of 2000, roughly 10% of Berklee's student body comprised Japanese students.) While in Boston, Akiyoshi studied with legendary music teachers
Herb Pomeroy,
Madame Chaloff, and
Richard Bobbitt. The latter taught her about
Joseph Schillinger's System of Musical Composition, which influenced her approach to composition. On March 18, 1956, she became known to the entire country as a mystery guest on the popular television game show, "What's My Line?"
Akiyoshi
married saxophonist Charlie Mariano in 1959. In 1963, the two had a daughter
Monday Michiru. The pair formed several bands together, until their
divorce in 1967. That same year, she met saxophonist
Lew Tabackin, whom she married in 1969. Akiyoshi and Tabackin moved to
Los Angeles in 1972. In March 1973, they formed a 16-piece
big band composed of studio musicians. Akiyoshi composed and arranged music for the band, and Tabackin served as the band's featured
soloist, on
tenor saxophone and
flute. The band recorded its first album,
Kogun
, in 1974. The title, which translates to "one-man army," was inspired by the tale of a Japanese soldier lost for 30 years in the
jungle, who believed that World war II was still being fought and thus remained loyal to the
Emperor.
Kogun
was commercially successful in Japan, and the band began to receive critical acclaim. By 1980, the
Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band was considered one of the most important big bands in jazz.
The couple moved to
New York City in 1982, where they promptly assembled a new big band (now called the
Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra featuring Lew Tabackin). Akiyoshi toured with smaller bands to raise money for her big band.
BMG continued to release her big band's recordings in Japan, but remained skeptical about releasing the music in the United States — since the 1950s, big band music has rarely achieved commercial success in the US. While Akiyoshi was able to release several albums in the US featuring her piano in solo and small combo settings, many of her later big band albums were released only in Japan and were available elsewhere only as imports. On Monday,
December 29,
2003, her band played its final concert at
Birdland in New York City, where it had enjoyed a regular Monday night
gig for more than seven years. Akiyoshi explained that she disbanded the ensemble because she was frustrated by her inability to obtain
US recording contracts for the big band. She also said that she wanted to concentrate on her piano playing, from which she had been distracted by years of composing and arranging. She has said that although she has rarely recorded as a solo pianist, that is her preferred format. On
March 24,
2004, Warner Japan released the final recording of Akiyoshi's big band. Titled
Last Live in Blue Note Tokyo
, the CD was recorded on
November 28 and 29, 2003 but she continues to perform and record as a pianist and occasional guest bandleader.
Akiyoshi lives on
Manhattan's
Upper West Side with her husband. Besides being musicians, they are both avid
wine and cigar collectors.
Music
Akiyoshi's music is distinctive for its textures and for its Japanese influence. When
Duke Ellington died in 1974,
Nat Hentoff wrote in the
Village Voice about how Ellington's music reflected his
African heritage. Upon reading this, Akiyoshi was inspired to investigate her own Japanese musical heritage. From that point on, she began composing with Japanese themes, Japanese harmonies, and even Japanese instruments (e.g.
kotsuzumi,
kakko, utai,
tsugaru shamisen, etc.). Her music remained planted firmly in jazz, however, reflecting influences including those of Ellington,
Charles Mingus, and
Bud Powell. Akiyoshi has spoken of approaching her arrangements vertically, voicing each chord individually, which contrasts with the philosophy advocated by Herb Pomeroy,
Bob Florence, and others, of writing phrases in a linear fashion. Akiyoshi often uses five-part
harmony in her voicings, which yields a bigger sound from her horn section.
One reviewer of the live LP
Road Time
said the music on her big band albums demonstrates
"...a level of compositional and orchestral ingenuity that made her one of perhaps two or three composer-arrangers in jazz whose name could seriously be mentioned in the company of Duke Ellington, Eddie Sauter and Gil Evans." [1]
In 1999, Akiyoshi was approached by a
Buddhist priest named Nakagawa. He asked her if she would consider writing a piece for his hometown,
Hiroshima. He sent her some photos depicting the aftermath of the
nuclear bombing. Her initial reaction was horror. She didn't see how she could compose anything to address the event. Finally she found a picture of a young woman, emerging from an underground
shelter with a faint smile on her face. Akiyoshi said that upon seeing this picture, she understood the message: hope. With that message in mind, she composed the three-part
suite Hiroshima: Rising From the Abyss
. The piece was premiered in Hiroshima on
August 6,
2001. This date was the 56th
anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, and just a few weeks before the
September 11, 2001 attacks. The Hiroshima suite was featured on a 2002 CD release bearing the same title,
Hiroshima - Rising From The Abyss
.
Discography
Awards and honors
- 2007 NEA Jazz Master [2]
- Down Beat magazine Critic's Poll winner: [3]
- *Jazz Album of the Year: (Insights
)
- *Big Band: , , , ,
- *Arranger: , , , ,
- *Composer: ,
- Grammy award nominations: [4]
- *Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Big Band: 1976 (Long Yellow Road
), 1977 (Road Time
), 1978 (Insights
), 1979 (Kogun
), 1980 (Farewell
), 1981 (Tanuki's Night Out
), 1984 (Ten Gallon Shuffle
), 1985 (March of the Tadpoles
), 1992 (Carnegie Hall Concert
), 1994 (Desert Lady / Fantasy
).
- *Best Arrangement on an Instrumental: 1981 (for "A Bit Byas'd"), 1983 (for "Remembering Bud"), 1985 (for "March of the Tadpoles"), 1994 (for "Bebop").
- Stereo Review magazine (US)
- *Jazz Album of the Year: 1976 (Long Yellow Road
)
- Swing Journal (Japanese jazz magazine) awards: [5]
- *Gold Disk: (Insights
), Silver Disk: (Kogun
), (Salted Gingko Nuts
), (Four Seasons of Morita Village)
, "Special Award": (50th Anniversary Concert in Japan)
References
- Nicholson, Stuart. The Essential Jazz Records, Volume 2: Modernism to Postmodernism, p226. Max Harrison, Charles Fox, Eric Thacker, Stuart Nicholson. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000.
- NEA Jazz Master: US National Endowment for the Arts. Accessed 2008 April 28.
- Down Beat Critic's Poll winners database "archives". Accessed 2007 June 3.
- LA Times, Grammy Nominees Database. Accessed 2007 June 3.
- Swing Journal annual disk awards (Japanese link). Accessed 2007 June 3.