“Osaka has played a leading role in the early days of jazz in Japan and in Asia,” Carter said.
“I was introduced to jazz while playing in a dance hall as a teenager during the American occupation by a Japanese jazz fan and record collector. He played Teddy Wilson’s ‘Sweet Lorraine,’ and I was hooked,” said pianist-composer Toshiko Akiyoshi, who will be performing with her husband, saxophonist-flutist Lew Tabackin, at the Osaka concert.
Akiyoshi, who came to the U.S. in 1956 to study jazz, gained worldwide acclaim first as a bebop pianist and later as the leader of her own big band, often writing compositions that drew on traditional Japanese music.
Hancock said International Jazz Day has “gone beyond our wildest expectations” since its launch in 2012.
UNESCO said Jazz Day events were held last year in all 196 member countries despite political, financial and security challenges. The organizers reached out beyond official organizations to work with hotels and restaurants, embassies, schools and musicians.
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Image by Mahmut Ceylan of Dale Barlow and Terence Blanchard, courtesy of International Jazz Day