Articles

Toshiko Akiyoshi Trio at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

by Keith Henry Brown
September 7, 2017

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 ...

Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band: Mosaic Select

by Ken Dryden
July 10, 2009

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 ...

Toshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin Big Band: Mosaic Select

by Samuel Chell
July 6, 2009

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 ...

Toshiko Akiyoshi: Fine Wine

by Ken Dryden
May 2, 2009

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 ...

Toshiko Akiyoshi: Hiroshima: Rising From The Abyss

by AAJ Staff
October 12, 2003

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 ...

A Fireside Chat With Toshiko Akiyoshi

by AAJ Staff
April 20, 2003

The marriage of composition and arrangement is not an easy one in modern music. Dedication to history coupled with invention of tomorrow makes the task even more daunting. Toshiko Akiyoshi has been doing just that for the past thirty years with her big band. What is impressive is not the time, but the quality of her efforts. Hope from tragedy, hope from destruction, hope from loss, and hope for tomorrow are themes not easily translated to music. Akiyoshi's latest project ...

Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra: Hiroshima

by Jim Santella
March 3, 2003

Dedicated to the memory of a city that experienced the unfathomable horrors of war in 1945, Toshiko Akiyoshi’s extended work for big band sizzles. There’s a lesson here for all mankind. In the early movements of her suite, everything’s all right. The band swings with its usual Monday night balance and tips its hat to one soloist after another. Few big bands carry on the tradition as well.

Then comes the tragedy, and everything changes for a ...