|
Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZAKIYOSHI, Toshiko(b 12 December 1929, Manchuria) Piano, highly regarded composer/arranger. She studied piano in Manchuria, went to Japan in 1945 and played in dance halls; a record collector played Teddy Wilson's 'Sweet Lorraine' for her. Oscar Peterson heard her and was impressed; she recorded for Norman Granz with Oscar's rhythm section. To the USA in 1956; an album with her then husband Charles Mariano was Toshiko-Mariano Quartet; she returned to Japan with him in 1961, then back to USA; with Charles Mingus in 1962 (she played on the famous Town Hall Concert). There were long stays in Japan, visits to Europe in the 1960s; she worked with J. J. Johnson in 1964 and at the Newport Jazz Festival same year. She had her own radio show in NYC; and made her own Town Hall debut in 1967 as leader, pianist, composer. She toured with her second husband Lew Tabackin (reeds, flute; b Lewis Barry Tabackin, 26 May 1940, Philadelphia PA) in a quartet; they formed a workshop band which became the the Akiyoshi/Tabackin Big Band and won down beat polls; albums Kogun and Top Of The Gate were hits in Japan in the early 1970s. Max Harrison has suggested that she took the torch of orchestral innovation in jazz from Don Ellis's hands; a fine pianist inspired by American music, keeping a band together for many years and writing all the music for it, she has been ignored by the American major labels: the two volumes of her Newport appearance '77 were available in France, Germany, Japan and Brazil, but not in the USA. She played solo at the Monterey Jazz Festival '73; with the big band at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, at Carnegie Hall '80. The albums included quartet and trio sets on Verve and other labels in '50s; big band Tales Of A Courtesan '75 on RCA; Notorious Tourist From The East on Inner City, Tribute To Billy Strayhorn on Jam, trio Finesse on Concord Jazz, all '78; trio Interlude '87 on Concord Jazz; quintet At The Top Of The Gate '86 on Denon. More big-band albums included Long Yellow Road '75 (won Record of the Year awards in down beat and Stereo Review); Insights and Road Time '76 (two-disc set); Sumi-e '79, Farewell To Mingus '80, Tanuki's Night Out '81; European Memoirs '82 on Baystate (hear her on 'Remembering Bud'), Wishing Peace '86 on their Ascent label. Other albums in the '90s: Remembering Bud '90 on Evidence, solo no. 36 in Concord's Maybeck Hall recital series; big-band sets on Ken (Wishing Peace), Novus (The Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band) and Columbia (Desert Lady -- Fantasy); Live At Carnegie Hall '92 included Tabackin and Freddie Hubbard. Five RCA big band albums were compiled on a Mosaic Select 3-CD set in 2008. |