The Song of the Day Features A Jazz Legend, Born in Manchuria in 1929

Toshiko Akiyoshi Led a Remarkable Life in Jazz

Akiyoshi’s precocious musical talent at first languished in a defeated Tokyo devoid of pianos, and the only instrument available was in local jazz clubs entertaining US servicemen.

Toshiko Akiyoshi

Toshiko Akiyoshi led a remarkable life, to say the least (the link takes you to wonderful summary of Akiyoshi by historian Emma Rothberg). As a Japanese infant, she and her parents were buffeted by Imperial Japan’s subjugation and then abandonment of Manchuria, returning as a child to an occupied Tokyo at the end of WW2.

Her precocious musical talent at first languished in a defeated Tokyo devoid of pianos, and the only instrument available was in local jazz clubs entertaining US servicemen. She soon mastered both the piano and the universal language of bebop; Oscar Peterson heard her play and musical history was made.

Her career is, to me, compelling evidence of jazz’s cosmopolitanism. This young Japanese woman recorded some the most brilliant, but orthodox ensemble work in the Golden Age of Bebop. Her dis…