Akiko Tsuruga at SJZ Break Room

Japanese organist Akiko Tsuruga makes an infrequent Northern California stop with her trio. She's widely praised by musicians and critics alike, with DownBeat gushing that "Tsuruga not only reinterprets the art of phrasing—with uniquely interjected, expressive notes, rhythmic syncopations and brow-raising chordal voicings—she never falters as she swings in and around the pocket." Opening the concert is a set by the Dave Burns Trio. Raised in Osaka, Japan, she began studying the organ at the age of three, at the famed Yamaha Music School. After landing in New York, it didn't take long for Akiko to make her mark playing with jazz greats like Frank Wess, Jimmy Cobb, Grady Tate and Lou Donaldson...

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Japanese organist Akiko Tsuruga makes an infrequent Northern California stop with her trio. She's widely praised by musicians and critics alike, with DownBeat gushing that "Tsuruga not only reinterprets the art of phrasing—with uniquely interjected, expressive notes, rhythmic syncopations and brow-raising chordal voicings—she never falters as she swings in and around the pocket." Opening the concert is a set by the Dave Burns Trio. Raised in Osaka, Japan, she began studying the organ at the age of three, at the famed Yamaha Music School. After landing in New York, it didn't take long for Akiko to make her mark playing with jazz greats like Frank Wess, Jimmy Cobb, Grady Tate and Lou Donaldson. She has ten albums as a leader to her credit both in the US and Japan. Sweet and Funky, her debut album in the US, was heralded by All About Jazz as "representing the organ trio tradition that is steeped in the blues and swings like crazy." Her albums have constantly placed in the top ten on the National Radio Jazz Chart and Akiko has received the Swing Journal Rising Star Award (Japan) in 2010, Hot House Magazine Best Organist Award in 2017 and was named Rising Star Organist in the 2020 DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll. Bruce Forman is a seasoned jazz guitarist with top-level skills as a leader, entertainer and sideman. He creates soulful, lyrical melodies and inventive harmonies. Cow Bop, Forman's unique "western bebop" band, hit four separate charts with its CDs, Swingin' Out West, Route 66, Too Hick for the Room and Cowlifornia Swing. Akira Tana is a legendary California-born jazz drummer who has worked with Sonny Rollins, Hubert Laws, Milt Jackson, Jim Hall, Art Farmer, Paquito D'Rivera, Lena Horne, The Manhattan Transfer and many others. He has appeared on over 200 albums and released three as a bandleader including Otonowa, which he recorded and toured to raise relief funds after the devastating 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

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