Many years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabakin big band, and this weekend, you too will have a chance to see this legendary musician in the most intimate of settings. This Saturday afternoon’s SFJAZZ Members-only concert provides just that, presenting a solo recital of renowned big band arranger and pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi at the exquisite Florence Gould Theatre.
Akiyoshi’s history as a jazz pianist dates back to the late ‘40s in Japan. The postwar era in full swing, young Akiyoshi had no trouble finding piano gigs at the many nightclubs catering to American soldiers. A chance encounter with Oscar Peterson, touring Japan with the famed Jazz at the Philharmonic band, garnered her a record date with Verve Records impresario Norman Granz. Soon after she enrolled as the first-ever Japanese student to study jazz at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, where she pursued her nascent interest in composition. Her first marriage to alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano was a creative partnership that yielded a string of quartet recordings in the ‘60s. Akiyoshi formed her first big band in Los Angeles with her second husband, tenor saxophonist and flutist Lew Tabackin, in the early ‘70s, and then moved cross-country to New York City a decade later, where she’s lived ever since.
Though most of her accolades have come via her work as a composer and arranger, solo jazz piano has remained a lifelong passion—one documented on the classic album Toshiko Akiyoshi at Maybeck and on display tonight in this very special Members-only engagement. With a heavy influence of the classic bop style of Bud Powell, her solo playing, like everything else Akiyoshi turns her prodigious skill to, is truly one of a kind.
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 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, (again featuring 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).
There have been a plethora of fantastic pianists making their way to the Bay area lately, Ahmad Jamal, Joe Zawinul, McCoy Tyner, just to name a few, don't miss another one of these original greats, Toshiko Akiyoshi.
Toshiko Akiyoshi, solo
Saturday, October 28 • 2pm
Florence Gould Theatre, Legion of Honor
Tickets: $30 General Admission
