Toshiko Akiyoshi Trio at Musical Instrument Museum

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 China and brought her to prominence as an unparalleled pianist, composer, and leader of the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra. Her recordings have received a total of fourteen GRAMMY nominations.

Akiyoshi’s interest in the piano started at age six. She soon began playing piano professionally, which eventually led to her being discovered by pianist Oscar Peterson in 1952 during a Norman Granz Jazz at the Philharmonic tour of Japan. On Peterson’s recommendation, Akiyoshi recorded for Granz, and not long after, she went left to study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. 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 ten years on the West Coast and gained a reputation as one of the most excellent and innovative big bands in jazz....

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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 China and brought her to prominence as an unparalleled pianist, composer, and leader of the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra. Her recordings have received a total of fourteen GRAMMY nominations.

Akiyoshi’s interest in the piano started at age six. She soon began playing piano professionally, which eventually led to her being discovered by pianist Oscar Peterson in 1952 during a Norman Granz Jazz at the Philharmonic tour of Japan. On Peterson’s recommendation, Akiyoshi recorded for Granz, and not long after, she went left to study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. 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 ten years on the West Coast and gained a reputation as one of the most excellent and innovative big bands in jazz.

In 1992, Akiyoshi’s work was performed by the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and the following year by the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra. In 1996 Maestro James De Priest conducted the Portland Symphony in a program of Akiyoshi’s works. In 1993 a live concert of the big band, “Strive for Jive,” was released on video. Toshiko’s long-time dream was realized in 1996 when she completed her autobiography, Life With Jazz. The book is now in its fifth printing in Japanese and will soon be translated into Korean. Among the many honors she has received are the Shijahosho (1999, from the Emperor of Japan); the Japan Foundation Award, Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosetta (2004, from the Emperor of Japan); the Asahi Award (2005, from the Asahi Shimbun newspaper), and NEA Jazz master (2007).

In 2002 Toshiko retired her big-band projects and returned to the piano, touring as a trio and sometimes a quartet with her husband. Summing up her own career, Akiyoshi, with characteristic modesty commented in an interview with the San Bemardino Sun, “I would hope that my work might have more substance and more quality rather than quantity of notes. And I hope the notes I produce today are more selective than twenty years ago.”

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