She’s 93-Years-Old And A Living Jazz Legend Who Received A Whopping 14 Grammy Nominations
This month, the esteemed venue, The Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, will host a concert dedicated to the music of Japanese-American pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi.
Toshiko is a musician who has impressed audiences with her talent all over the world. This is her story.
Toshiko was born to a Japanese family in Manchuria in December 1929. When World War II ended, Toshiko and her family moved to Japan. As a young girl, Toshiko played the piano. However, her family had lost most of their things after the war, and she had no piano, so she began practicing and playing in music clubs.
She fell in love with jazz after hearing a record from Teddy Wilson, the American jazz pianist. Toshiko started playing jazz piano in the clubs where she worked, and in 1952, she was discovered by pianist Oscar Peterson while he was on tour in Japan.
Oscar set up a meeting for Toshiko to play and record a record for American jazz record producer Norman Granz.
After recording her debut album, Toshiko’s Piano, Toshiko set out to the United States in 1956 to attend the Berklee School of Music in Boston. She was the first Japanese student to study at Berklee.
Toshiko’s name started circulating the American jazz scene, especially when she moved to New York City in 1959 and played in some of the city’s most famous jazz venues.
Although many of those who got to hear Toshiko play early in her career were adoring fans, she faced much discrimination for being a female Asian jazz musician.
There weren’t many women who looked like her playing jazz piano at the time, and she was changing the music scene.
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In 1959, she married jazz saxophonist Charlie Mariano and formed a quartet with him. She and Charlie had a daughter together.
During the 1960s, Toshiko began composing and arranging music for other artists like Charles Mingus. She and Charlie eventually divorced, and she married flutist Lew Tabackin in 1969. They moved to Los Angeles, California, in the early 1970s.
In 1973, Toshiko formed an amazing jazz orchestra, the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, comprised of 16 musicians.
She introduced a lot of Japanese culture to the band, incorporating some Japanese instruments into their recordings. Their first album was titled Kogun, and the jazz orchestra went on to receive tons of critical praise.
Toshiko and her husband returned to New York in the 1980s, where the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra continued to be successful and play in historical venues like Carnegie Hall. In total, the band recorded 22 albums and received a whopping 14 Grammy nominations.
In 2003, the jazz orchestra played their final show together in New York City. After that, Toshiko returned to playing piano, her first musical love. In 2007, she received a Jazz Master award from the National Endowment of the Arts.
Toshiko still does some work in the music world today, as she is a living legend. She is 93 years old and still with her husband, who will play the tenor saxophone and flute alongside her for a few numbers at the Lincoln Center Jazz concert, The Music of Toshiko Akiyoshi, on March 10th.
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