Toshiko Akiyoshi

Interview by Michael Pronko

Photo by Jun Takagi

Toshiko Akiyoshi's big band has long been recognized as one of the most innovative in the entire world of jazz. Over the course of fifty years of live performances and forty-some recordings, her work has received both critical praise and consistent popularity. However, it was not until last year that she received "official" recognition. In October, Akiyoshi received the honor of a Japan Foundation Award for her achievements.  The award was for her work in bridging cultures, by bringing Japanese musical influences and cultural themes into the language of American jazz.Her bicultural work extended back to the post-war (that's World War II) period, when she learned jazz piano from records and honed her technique in the many servicemen's clubs that sprung up during the occupation. Eventually, she was noticed by Oscar Peterson during a Japan tour and given a chance to record a debut release in 1953. After that recording, Akiyoshi had a chance to move to America and play with the musicians she had only heard on record. After a decade of hard-driving bop quintets and quartets in New York, she eventually formed her own big band, with husband and saxophone player Lew Tabackin. This band remains one of the very best big bands in jazz ever.When she was in Tokyo last fall, she took time to talk, in fluent English, about her career and music over coffee in the coffee shop at her hotel. As a veteran of countless interviews over the years, Akiyoshi was a lively and engaged talker, who clearly enjoyed discussing her great love of jazz music and jazz life.

So, tell me about your award.

It was a Japan Foundation Award. Actually, I didn't even know that such a thing existed. Someone mentioned that a foundation had a fund for artists introducing Japanese culture to other countries. I received that a couple times, once going to China with the whole band and once going to South America. The basic rule is you must reside in Japan, and I was living in the United States, but as you know every place I go they always say "from Japan." So, I knew there was a fund, but I didn't know there was a prize, so I was very surprised to win. The day before we had dinner with the Japan Foundation people, and they were very, very nice people. They told me that my name had come up every year. Anyway, they said the award was for my contribution of putting in Japanese culture into jazz.

Did you feel they were more interested in your bringing Japanese culture to other cultures or for the jazz itself?

Well, as you know jazz is a fusion of African culture with European, and born in America. There was nothing Asian, nothing Japanese, in there. Meanwhile, jazz became a very universal music. A long time ago, when I was still in Japan, the regular people, including players, felt that to be Japanese and play jazz was a kind of handicap. After I recorded in 1953, it took me about four years to realize that I had to have my own idiosyncrasy, but it took me over twenty years to realize that what I should do is bring in my Japanese culture. Actually, it was really Duke Ellington's death that opened my eyes. I realized that he was very proud of his race, and much of his music was based on his race. So, I thought I should look into my heritage, and maybe I could fuse some of my culture, which is my asset, and perhaps make something a little bit different. So, that was my reason for starting. At that point, I had been playing quite a lot, and had a lot of experience with a lot of American players. I was fortunate because I went to the States at a very good time. Many players, like Oscar Pettiford, were still alive, and playing together was a very valuable lesson to me. But instead of just getting a benefit from jazz, I also wanted to return something. The funny thing was that before I even realized it I had already in 1961 written something Japanese, "Long Yellow Road," which became my signature piece. Bill Evans said he really liked it, and that there was something about it that was oriental. So, if you have something like that, it will come out. But, it took me twenty years to realize I should TRY to do that. 

When you first heard jazz after the war, though, it must have seemed very American to you.

I really didn't feel like that. I started to play when I was six years old, in China. I was born there, in Manchuria as it was called, where my father was a businessman. After the war, we lost everything, and we had to come back to Japan. My parents are from Oita. Because my parents weren't able to buy a piano for me, I took a job in a German dance hall. That was in Beppu city, and I was sixteen years old. I was hired immediately because the camp was there, and the military had to have an officer's club and a show club, all different clubs. The Japanese wanted to dance also. After the war, the musicians were few, so that's why I was hired immediately. So, it was just everything, timing, luck, a lack of musicians, what have you. I was hired first for the Japanese dance hall. This was a wonderful combo, the leader an ex-Navy bandleader and the only elderly person, played the violin. So, it was violin, accordion, drums, alto sax, and piano. There was no bass. So, I thought that was jazz. One night, this jazz record collector, Mr. Fukui, invited me to his home and played this record, Teddy Wilson's "Sweet Lorraine." When I heard him playing, I thought, I want to play just like that. That was the beginning. I used to copy the solos from the records, not just his, but everyone's solos, and try them on piano.

So, you heard jazz only on records?Mr. Fukui also had a book, "How to Play Jazz Piano," by Vincent Lopez. That was ragtime piano, things like "Muskrat Ramble," "Twelfth Street Rag," and what have you. That was the first time I saw that a pianist had to play stride. So, that took some time to learn. Then, I moved to Fukuoka, and there was a big band at the officer's club. They had a record player, so in the daytime, I could hear some records and try things out on the piano. At that time, they had what they called "V discs." Those were the first of the records that you could drop and they wouldn't break. So, I heard Duke Ellington's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" but I just couldn't understand it. It sounded like noise to me. I just couldn't understand it. I was not sophisticated enough, I was only seventeen years old, but for Duke's band, even today, you need a sophisticated ear. Count Basie's band, you don't need a sophisticated ear. It swings, and anybody can understand it. But Duke's band always was very sophisticated, and seemed not quite together, in a sense, a mosaic. At that time, my ear was good enough only for Gene Krupa, "Dark Eyes," that kind of thing.

But that's what people wanted to hear then, too?

I have no idea what people really wanted to hear. At the officer's club, they had stock arrangements, furnished, I think by the American side. Everything was stock, so everyone could play, four bar introduction, then a chorus, and then four bars to moderate to the singer. We usually didn't have a singer actually, but they were arrangements like for Frank Sinatra. When there was a male or female singer, they would moderate at a different place. Then, there was an alto or tenor solo, then ensemble eight bars, and so on.Someone said once that they said they could hear the difference between musicians who played for dancers and those who never played for dancers.I'm not quite sure. I think that in the old tradition they played for dancers, but if they came out of the bebop era, they didn't. Those that came out of playing for dancers are equipped to do studio work, Broadway shows, there's a difference there. I know one piano player, very highly regarded, but his playing fits a highly sophisticated place like the Plaza Hotel. Then, there is a player like John Lewis, who is a very economized player, with very few notes, more of a jazz artist.

At some point, you must have made that decision, too, about jazz as art?

I don't think I had a clear decision. It was a natural evolving. I was so interested in everyone's playing, and the only way to learn was to listen to records. I used to go to copy the records, in those jazz coffee shops. Those were very important places to learn new tunes, the players, and everything.

Like jazz kissaten Chigusa?

Yes, in Yokohama, and there was another one in Yurakucho called Combo. Chigusa is still there. Now it's a little bigger, but it used to be very small. If I asked the owner to play that particular place on a record again, he would pick the needle up and drop it there again. So, for some LPs, that particular groove at that little bit on the record would get a little worn. That was a very important place. I was doing what I wanted to do, but maybe you're right. I did make a decision. I was playing in a group in 1959 called the Six Lemons, considered the best combo around. We played in a nightclub called Ginbasha, in Ginza, with a lot of hostesses, beautiful hostesses, and basically everyone danced. But I just didn't want to do it. So, I quit, and formed my own quartet, called Cozy Quartet, with a good trombone player. We had to break up finally because he got tuberculosis. With the Six Lemons, I was the highest paid sideman in Japan, but after I quit, it got very hard to pay the rent.

Were there a lot of places to play at that time?

There were the American service clubs, the Tokyo men's service club, and also an important place in Yokohama called the Seamen's Club. It was a real rough place. Once a week they would have a fight, but it was a place where I could play. They could dance if they wanted to dance, or fight, or whatever. But I could play whatever I wanted to play, and that was very important.

So, then you went to America in '56?

In '53, the Jazz at the Philharmonic tour came to Japan, and Oscar Peterson heard me and suggested to Norman Granz to make a recording. I was 23 years old. As you know, jazz is a social art. If you have a better player than you, then you become better. So, I wanted to go to the States and see if I could play with the musicians I heard on record. There was a small school, Berklee, which is now a huge school, but then it was only 300 students or so. You had to have a scholarship and sponsorship, and the school did all that for me. I got there in January and started to play in March in Storyville. I got to play with a lot of great players. In those days, it was very open. If you knew the tune, you could sit in. You can't do that today. It wasn't quite so much a business, or produced, but was really open. Max (Roach) had a band, and I was sitting in, and Dizzy (Gillespie) had a big band. I sat in with Miles, a great quartet, but no one came to listen to it.

So, how did you get from those quartets and quintets to your big band?

I was never interested in big bands then. I was only interested in individual playing. I was writing for a quartet, but you have all these multiple reasons, which come to one point, so it started to get difficult for me to express my political view, and if I may exaggerate, my philosophical view, through what I was doing. I wanted to have a little more color, and that needed more instruments. So, I felt that I might be able to express more of my view with a big band. At that point, I was really struggling, so I thought if I had a concert someone would notice and maybe I might get in a little better position. So in 1967, I had my self-produced concert at Town Hall. At that time, I wrote, but it was mainly solo, trio, and quartet. I had only five pieces for a big band. In New York at that time, space was very expensive. If you started something, you had to keep going, and I didn't have the money to go over the rented time. Then, in 1972, I met Lew (Tabackin) and moved with him to Los Angeles. Lew had a job with the Tonight Show, but Los Angeles didn't have any jazz scene. He got terribly bored with it. He learned that there was a union where you could get a hall for two and a half hours for fifty cents. So, Lew said I can get the musicians together, so maybe we can play those five pieces you wrote. So, for him it was something to do, closer to jazz than the Tonight Show. That was March 1973, and we met every Wednesday morning. I wrote and wrote, but I didn't have the money to send it to a copyist, so I did it myself. I copied so badly. A few months later, people started talking about this, and ten months later, everyone had been coming, so I thought maybe I would record it.

To run a big band, it's like you have to be everyone's personal manager all at once.

That's right. In a trio or quartet, you know everyone really well. But sixteen people! I never dealt with so many musicians, and also I had never dealt with so many white musicians. Before then, the quartets or quintets I was in always had black musicians, so it was difficult. The able players never have a chip on their shoulder, but the not-quite-able players become very defensive. So, it took time to decide this player was inappropriate, and some of the players themselves said they couldn't do it every Wednesday morning. So, it took six months to get ready. I kept writing new pieces, and we got together every Wednesday morning. There was a bass trombone player, a studio musician with a beautiful sound, who had never done jazz before. He said at first, I don't know what I'm doing here, but he became so interested and so dedicated, he said, I'll go anywhere with you. I don't play bass trombone, so I was really ignorant about the technical details, so I wrote it just like a tenor trombone. He changed his embouchure, which took him six hours every day just so he could play the music I had written. There are some musicians who just say, well, you can't do that, but then others, like this trombone player, and like Lew, who say, I will find a way to play the music. That's what separates the real musicians.

You were not afraid ever of creating new, challenging music, either.

Well, I didn't mean to do that, but the reason is, like Frank Wess used to say, too many notes, too many notes. Since I developed as a bebop player, and bebop is a virtuoso music, there were always so many notes. You have to have technique to be able to execute that music. So that's why it became very difficult, not because I wanted to write difficult music. I had a woodwind section, too, the only big band to have that, but the reason I had that was just because all the saxophone players that Lew got together all played flute. So, that's just how that happened. After that, the next band had to have woodwinds, because we already had the charts for woodwinds. We found one baritone sax player but he couldn't play flute, so I had to think, well maybe I'll rewrite the whole thing. Lew said, let's chip in and send him to flute lessons. In the end we had to get someone else. In the large ensemble, once you write something, then the new person has to fit that position.

How did the big band format let you express your political ideas more fully?

The first one was "Kogun"[in 1974] when he was discovered in the Philippine jungle. He was there not because he wanted to, but he was basically a victim of the war, which is usually decided by upstairs, for whom we all have to work. I felt terribly sad and hurt for him, but at the same time, I was looking and thinking about Japanese instruments, like the usuzumi. I needed a flute piece, so the whole thing came together. To have that usuzumi flute section for twelve bars took ten hours to write just for that.  When you integrate something like Japanese culture, it has to be natural, and not superficial. That's the difficult part. When I wrote that one, I thought the Japanese fans and critics would really put me down. But I didn't give a damn, so I was really surprised when that became a bestseller. I never sold a record before. Doing something that hasn't been done before can get superficial. The hardest thing is to be integrated in a natural way. John Lewis really loved "Kogun," and used it when he taught at Harvard as an example of jazz becoming a universal language. The second one was, "Tales of a Courtesan," [in 1975] which was actually about Edo-era courtesans, the culture women of the time. They were highly educated according their talents, but at the same time they were highly restricted. If they escaped from Yoshiwara they would be punished by death. I thought that was extreme, I don't think you had that in other countries. I am always interested and concerned about what happens to the policy effect on people like us. The political idea usually affects the social issue. Because I'm a jazz player, I just wanted to express my feeling in jazz language, like with Minamata and Hiroshima.

Tell me more about the Hiroshima piece. It's such a horrifying subject, but you put beauty and hope inside.

That came about because of a Buddhist priest in Hiroshima. He was quite familiar with jazz, had a lot of records, and knew Duke Ellington and everybody. He knew about my piece on Minamata, so he thought I would be an appropriate person to write a musical story of Hiroshima. At that time, I said, I don't know. But he said he would like to send me some material anyway. So, he sent me a few things. One was a book of photographs taken three days after the bomb had dropped. I had never seen that before. When I came back to Japan from China after the war, it was during the occupation and the Japanese press never talked about that.

At that time, it was forbidden to show pictures of the bombing by the occupation censors.

I went to the United States, and I never even thought about it. Of course, I read about it and heard about the women going to the States for treatment, but I really never thought about it every day. When I saw that book of photographs, it was so terrible and horrifying. I thought, I don't think I can write something about this. Writing something about the bomb, I didn't know if it would be meaningful. To write that in the music, does it mean something? So, I was thinking that I would say, no, I couldn't do that. Then I was looking at the photos and there was one of a woman coming out from underground. She was looking up, smiling a little bit, with such a beautiful face it could be a May calendar picture. She was beautiful. So, I thought, OK I can maybe write that. No matter what the circumstance, no matter how horrifying, we always have to have hope. I decided to write something, and started to write the music of hope. I decided to premiere this in 2001, at the beginning of a new century. To me, Hiroshima was not exactly Japan versus America. It happened and many people suffered, but still we have to have hope. The people in Hiroshima, and people like myself, we all want to say to the world that we don't want war. There is nothing good about war. We are going to keep talking about this issue and send a message to the world, and keep hope high. The whole piece is 43 minutes long, but "Hope" is a very short section. But to me, that's the punch line. When I came back to the States around 9/11, I was really shocked, and I guess everyone was. So, in New York every Monday when the band plays, we always play "Hope." Today, people do tend to forget. Sometimes I think the war today is not like in the past. If you don't think about it, it seems like everything is wonderful, and nothing is happening. It's a totally different kind of war. I felt I wanted to play that because I thought the world is getting worse. Not just in one place, but all over the world. There will be more terror, more deficit, and more making things up. You know, it may be corny, but it's my way of saying, I am concerned.

(Originally published in The Japan Times November 17, 2004)