Toshiko's Piano

One night in 1953 while touring Tokyo with the Jazz at the Philharmonic crew, Oscar Peterson stopped into a then-new jazz spot called the Tennessee Coffee Shop and heard a young pianist named Toshiko Akiyoshi. Impressed, Peterson referred Akiyoshi to Norman Granz, who paired Akiyoshi with Peterson’s rhythm section (guitarist Herb Ellis, bassist Ray Brown and drummer J.C. Heard) and produced (or “supervised”, as the record’s original cover put it) Akiyoshi’s debut, Toshiko’s Piano. Bright, brisk and witty, mixing standards (“What Is This Thing Called Love?”, “I Want to Be Happy”) and originals (the breezy “Blues for Toshiko”, the vaguely Latin “Solidado”, which slams on the gas halfway through), the album established Akiyoshi not only as a new voice in bop, but as a jazz export at a post-war moment when the relationship between Japan and America was still healing. Within a couple of years, Akiyoshi had moved to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music, appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival and clubs like Storyville while still a student. Decades later, she mused on how her early sound—relatively cutting-edge for Japan at the time—had routinely gotten her fired from gigs; with Toshiko’s Piano, she made her home abroad.