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Toshiko Akiyoshi
Toshiko Akiyoshi's unique contributions to the jazz world have evolved like falling dominoes through a series of events that started with a piano-loving little Japanese girl in Manchuria and brought her to prominence as an unparalleled pianist, composer and leader of the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra. Manchurian-born Akiyoshi's interest in the piano started at age six, and by the time her family had moved back to Japan at the end of World War II. Toshiko had developed a real love for music. She soon began playing piano professionally, which eventually led to being discovered by pianist Oscar Peterson in 1952 during a Norman Granz Jazz at the Philharmonic tour of Japan. On Peterson recommendation, Toshiko recorded for Granz, and not long after, she went to the U.S. to study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.
Her years in Boston, and later on in New York, developed her into a first class pianist. Her interest in composing and arranging came to fruition when she moved to Los Angeles in 1972 with her husband, saxophonist/flutist Lew Tabackin. The following year they formed the world-renowned big band that is now known as the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra featuring Lew Tabackin. The band, which began as a vehicle for Toshiko's own compositions, grew in stature during its 10 years on the west coast and gained a reputation as one of the most excellent and innovative big bands in jazz. In 1976 the band placed first in the Down Beat Critics' Poll and her album, Long Yellow Road, was named best jazz album of the year by Stereo Review. The late Leonard Feather, eminent jazz critic and author, summed up the brilliance of Toshiko Akiyoshi big band in his review of that album, " ... greatness is greatness, whether on the East Coast, the West Coast in Tokyo or anywhere else in the world. I think you will find it in this magnificently variegated, consistently exciting example of one of the outstanding orchestras of our time." In 1977 the recording Insights was named as record of the year by Down Beat magazine.
In 1982 the couple returned to New York, where Toshiko reformed her band with New York musicians, In 1983 the new Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra featuring Lew Tabackin, had a critically successful debut at Carnegie Hall as part of the Kool Jazz Festival. That same year a documentary film by Renee Cho depicting the Akiyoshi/Tabackin move from L.A. to New York was released, entitled "Jazz is My Native Language" (Rhapsody Video).
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Homage To Artists Lost, Favorite 2023 Recordings Part I, Birthday Shoutouts To Toshiko Akiyoshi, Una Mae Carlisle, Rebecca Parris, Edith Piaf & More
by Mary Foster Conklin
The final broadcast of 2023 includes two new singles from Kayle Brecher and Carol McCann, Part I of my favorite recordings of 2023 with birthday shoutouts to Toshiko Akiyoshi, Kayle Brecher, Una Mae Carlisle, Rebecca Parris, Kerry Politzer, and Edith Piaf, among others plus a nod to some of the artists that left the planet this past year. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by purchasing their music during this time of pandemic so they can ...
read moreJitterbug Waltz, Toshiko Akiyoshi and some electro/electro acoustic works
by David Brown
This week, we celebrate Fats Waller's tune “Jitterbug Waltz," recorded 81 years ago this week, with interpretations by Cécile McLorin Salvant, Eric Dolphy & Tyshawn Sorey; we'll also check out a set of works featuring pianist composer & arranger Toshiko Akiyoshi. Ikue Mori was in Philly this week so let's hear a solo from her+ some electro/acoustic works. And of course, new releases, acquisitions and favorites are in the mix. Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at ...
read moreToshiko Akiyoshi Trio at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola
by Keith Henry Brown
Toshiko Akiyoshi Trio Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola Lessons from Our Masters New York, NY September 3, 2017 At 87, the brilliant pianist/bandleader/composer Toshiko Akiyoshi knows by now what works for her and what doesn't. As she ambled onto the stage at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola at Lincoln Center on a warm Sunday evening as part of the club's Lessons From Our Masters series the still vibrant musician joked with the crowd about her advanced age ...
read moreToshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band: Mosaic Select
by Ken Dryden
Pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi overcame numerous challenges during her long career, immigrating to a new country, establishing herself as both a top bandleader and composer/arranger, in addition to the difficulties of maintaining a large jazz ensemble. Her husband, tenor saxophonist and flutist Lew Tabackin, was a star soloist in her big band and he helped her recruit top musicians when she formed the band in 1973. Akiyoshi recorded numerous albums until disbanding the group in 2003, though many of these excellent ...
read moreToshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin Big Band: Mosaic Select
by Samuel Chell
Jazz was never more schizophrenic than in the 1970s. On the one hand, musicians equally savvy about mixing genres and running mixing boards were selling out arenas and producing lucrative, widely played albums, with bass-heavy danceable beats or soothing instrumental sounds tailor-made for air play on FM radio. At the other extreme, many of the jazz masters who came up with, or slightly before and after, saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Thelonious Monk could be heard in ...
read moreToshiko Akiyoshi: Fine Wine
by Ken Dryden
Toshiko Akiyoshi's reputation as a brilliant composer/arranger is widely heralded. She was the first woman to lead a big band for an extended period of time, while she was also the first Japanese jazz artist to achieve international acclaim. A pianist of incredible talent, Akiyoshi's abilities were somewhat hidden within her orchestra, though she made a number of small group and solo recordings, many of them only issued in Japan. She is also very proud of her 2007 NEA Jazz ...
read moreToshiko Akiyoshi: Hiroshima: Rising From The Abyss
by AAJ Staff
Composer, bandleader and pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi has tucked yet another significant feather into her cap with Hiroshima. Her new CD was recorded live at the composition's debut performance in its namesake city on August 6th, 2001, the 56th anniversary of that fateful 1945 day.The 15-minute first movement of the emotional three-part suite begins with “Futility," a seasonal blowing of reeds and brass. Swirling leaves touch ground then take flight. Flutes and reeds join the brass horns as the ...
read moreToshiko Akiyoshi: United Notions
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Globalization once was a guiding principal for the United States. With the proliferation of Communism in the 1950s, America moved quickly to make friends with as many countries around the world as it could. The United Nations was a big deal, Sixth Ave. in New York was known as Avenue of the Americas and the U.S. favored nations in Asia and Africa winning their independence after years of colonial rule. On the cutting edge of American international diplomacy was jazz. ...
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Toshiko Akiyoshi: Early Piano
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Toshiko Akiyoshi, 84, is best known today as the long-time leader of a big band. During the latter half of her career, that band has been co-led by Lew Tabackin, whom she married in 1969. She also formed several bands with her previous husband—alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano, whom she married in 1959 and divorced in 1967. Akiyoshi grew up in Japan after World War II when her parents moved back to the country from Manchuria. She began playing piano at ...
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Seattle Times - A Triple-Threat Treasure: Pianist, Singer and Composer Toshiko Akiyoshi
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Seattle Jazz Scene
As a Japanese woman and bandleader, Toshiko Akiyoshi was obliged to be a pioneer of one kind or another. In her day, women in jazz were singers and little more, and they certainly were not Japanese. From the culture she was born to and the one she adopted, she gathered proverbs that even today she finds useful to remember. “The Japanese have a saying, ‘The nail that sticks out will be beaten down,’ ” said Akiyoshi, who is in Seattle ...
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Mosaic Select: Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band
Source:
All About Jazz
One Of The Most Exciting & Original Big Bands In Jazz “Greatness is greatness, whether on the East Coast, the West Coast, in Tokyo, or anywhere else in the world. I think you will find it in this magnificently variegated, consistently exciting example of one of outstanding jazz orchestras of our time." --Leonard Feather, original liner notes In 1965, pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi returned to New York after three years in Japan. Soon thereafter, she formed an alliance with saxophonist Lew ...
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Toshiko Akiyoshi Trio featuring Jake Hanna on drums, Dave Carpenter on bass
Source:
All About Jazz
Berklee's Piano Week '04 Presents Two Legends: Toshiko Akiyoshi & Eddie Palmieri
Source:
All About Jazz
Week's Events Also Include Free Concerts by Piano Faculty JoAnne Brackeen, Laszlo Gardony, Bob Winter, Suzanne Davis, John Arcaro, Josh Rosen, Bob Christopherson, Bruce Katz and Dave Limina
BOSTON -- Berklee College of Music will present Piano Week 2004 from Monday, March 1, through Thursday, March 4, 2004. The annual series will feature concerts and clinics by two piano legends, Toshiko Akiyoshi '59 H'98 and Eddie Palmieri H'98, as well as Berklee's world-renowned piano faculty, and some of the college's ...
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Toshiko Akiyoshi & Maria Schneider Each Premiere New Works January 31 & February 1
Source:
All About Jazz
Inspired Jazz Artistry From Renowned Ensemble Leader-Composer Toshiko Akiyoshi And A Classic Piano Trio, The Drummonds, Highlight Two New True Life Entertainment CD Releases
Source:
All About Jazz
Inspiration is often the root of great musical performances, and the manner in which this quicksilver of all tuneful conjurers is shared among instrumentalists and conveyed to audiences fairly determines a work's uniqueness, power and success. Two new CD releases from True Life Entertainment give proof that the imaginative and situational well-springs that inform memorable jazz are, indeed, disparate and vast. On Hiroshima--Rising From the Abyss from the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra featuring Lew Tabackin, recalling the cataclysmic use of ...
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Toshiko Akiyoshi
Instrument: Piano
Born: December 12, 1929
