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30
Years of Memorable Music
Toshiko Akiyoshi & All That Jazz
by
Joan
Baum, Ph.D.
Remember
the old joke—how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice,
practice. Well, Toshiko Akiyoshi’s been there and now, after
30 years as a composer and conductor of the Toshiko Akiyoshi
Jazz Orchestra, she will be disbanding her group in order to
devote herself to practice, practice, practice. This superbly
accomplished musician wants to spend her remaining years perfecting
her piano technique, but not before showing off her considerable
composing and conducting talents one more time. On October
17, with her award-winning tenor saxophonist and flutist husband
Lew Tabackin as principal soloist, she will be giving a Farewell
Concert at Carnegie Hall. For those who know about this remarkable
diminutive powerhouse, the occasion will mark the American
premier of Hiroshima—Rising from the Abyss (2001), a
heartfelt programmatic work that memorializes but moves beyond
that fateful day in August 1945. Hiroshima marks another
30 year anniversary, for it was in 1974 when Akiyoshi wrote
an earlier hope-out-of-ashes piece, Kogun, inspired
by the poignant story of the Japanese solider who hid out in
the Philippine jungle for 15 years, not believing that the
war was over. The record sold an unprecedented 30,000 copies
in Japan, unheard of for a new work—and for a relatively unknown
artist, a woman, yet.
For
those who don’t know Akiyoshi’s music—or Tabackin’s—the upcoming
Carnegie Hall concert will show what all the celebration’s
been about over the years. Overcoming cultural ste-reotypes
and racial prejudices hardly approximates what it must have
been like for this extraordinary Japanese woman from Manchuria
when in 1945, at the age of 16, she calmly strode into a dance
hall for GIs in Japan that had advertised for someone to play
the piano. A lover of piano since the age of 7, when she studied
classical, this now legendary name in jazz composition fell
in love with the American musical idiom that for her resonated
as a unique expression of American Black culture. Drumming
is particularly important to her, but listeners should also
stay tuned for Japanese folk song influences. The move to the
states was inevitable, especially after she won a full scholarship
to the Berklee College of Music in Boston
Although
Akiyoshi started to make a name for herself in the `50s, it
was only in 1983, 10 years after forming a big band in L.A.
with Tabackin, that her reputation really soared. Since then,
she’s garnered praise from the best, including Bud Powell,
Duke Ellington, and Oscar Peterson, who called her “the best
female jazz pianist” he had ever heard. Although she works
in small groups, she prefers orchestra because of the greater “color” she
can achieve. What’s distinctive? The seriousness of her take
on jazz—“very sophisticated and personal music” that demands
patience. Alas, too many young people today are in a hurry,
she says. Jazz is an incredibly emotional and intellectual
experience, both for the performer and the listener. If you
are a classical pianist, she explains, the notes you play are
always the same. When you play jazz, however, and improvise,
you must not only be technically proficient but feel open to
an intimacy that seduces you into risk taking—different notes,
rhythms, pacing, riffs for whoever’s sitting in. You may never
play the piece the same way again.
What
is most amazing about Toshiko Akiyoshi is her modesty about
her craft and her devotion to her husband. Despite rave reviews,
she says her future is “wanting to play better,” and she notes
that Tabackin—her best listener and most supportive colleague—has
been rightly called the “most underrated saxophone player” ever,
whose expertise on flute “is as good as it gets.” For Toshiko
Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin music is indeed the food of love.
To which one can only say, with Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night, “play
on.” They will.#
30th
Anniversary & Farewell Concert: The Toshiko Akiyoshi
Jazz 0rchestra, Friday, October 17,
8 p.m., Carnegie Hall. Call 212-247-7800 or check www.carnegiehall.org.
Education
Update, Inc., P.O. Box 1588, New York, NY 10159.
Tel: (212) 477-5600. Fax: (212) 477-5893. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of
the publisher. © 2003.
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