Tsuyoshi Yamamoto
Birth nameTsuyoshi Yamamoto (山本剛, Yamamoto Tsuyoshi)
Born (1948-03-23) 23 March 1948
Sado Island, Niigata, Japan
GenresJazz
Occupation(s)Musician, composer
Instrument(s)Piano
Websitetsuyoshi-yamamoto.com

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto (山本剛, Yamamoto Tsuyoshi, born 23 March 1948) is a Japanese jazz pianist and composer.

Life and career

Yamamoto was largely self-taught as a pianist, although he did have piano lessons as a child.[1] He attended Nihon University.[1] As a student there, he played professionally, first as an accompanist to pop singer Micky Curtis; they toured Europe in 1967.[1] In 1974, he became house pianist at Misty, a Tokyo jazz club.[1] He also made his recording debut as leader that year.[1] He played major international festivals in the late 1970s.[1] He also "lived in New York for a year, when he performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae, Sam Jones, Billy Higgins, Elvin Jones, and Sonny Stitt, among others."[1]

Playing style

Commenting on Yamamoto's 2008 album What a Wonderful Trio!, Audiophile Audition noted that "Yamamoto seems to favor the very highest reaches of the treble keyboard with great gusto".[2]

Discography

An asterisk (*) after the year indicates that it is the year of release.

As leader/co-leader

Year recorded Title Label Notes
1974 Midnight Sugar Three Blind Mice Trio, with Isao Fukui (bass), Tetsujiro Obara (drums)
1974* Misty Three Blind Mice Trio, with Isao Fukui (bass), Tetsujiro Obara (drums)
1974 Blues For Tee Three Blind Mice
1974* Now's The Time Three Blind Mice TBM-29 Isao Suzuki & Sunao Wada With The Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio, George Otsuka Quintet
1974* Live at the Misty Three Blind Mice Trio
1974 The In Crowd Three Blind Mice TBM-52
1975* Night And Day Three Blind Mice Koji Moriyama With The Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio
1975* Sunny Frasco Minami With Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio
1976 Life East Wind Trio, with Sam Jones (bass), Billy Higgins (drums)
1978* Blues to East Philips Trio, with Tsutomo Okada (bass), Hiroshi Murakami (drums)
1978 Midnight Sun Three Blind Mice Trio, with Tsutomo Okada (bass), Keiji Kishida (drums)
1978 Red Gardenia Philips Trio, with Toshibumi Kawahata (bass), Keiji Kishida (drums)
1979 Bass Club King Records Trio, with Red Mitchell (bass), Isao Suzuki (piccolo bass)
1980* P.S. I Love You Toshiba EMI With Seiichi Nakamura (tenor sax), Jim McNeely (synthesizer), Shinobu Ito (guitar), Teruo Nakamura (bass), Art Gore (drums), Chuggy Carter and Nobu Urushiyama (percussion)
1981* Zephyr Concord With Bob Maize, Jeff Hamilton, Jeff Clayton
1985* Another Holiday Warner Bros.
1999 Speak Low Venus Trio, with Tsutomu Okada (bass), Yoshitaka Uematsu (drums)
2001* Autumn in Seattle First Impression Music Trio, with Ken Kaneko (bass), Toshio Osumi (drums)
2008 What a Wonderful Trio! First Impression Music Trio, with Hiroshi Kagawa (bass), Toshio Osumi (drums)
2013 Gentle Blues Venus Trio, with Hiroshi Kagawa (bass), Toshio Osumi (drums)
2013 What a Wonderful World Venus Trio, with Hiroshi Kagawa (bass), Toshio Osumi (drums)

As sideman

Year recorded Leader Title Label
1977* Yoshio Otomo Moon Ray Three Blind Mice

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sugiyama, Kazunori, Yamamoto, Tsuyoshi, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, retrieved 31 January 2015
  2. ↑ Henry, John (14 March 2009) "Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio – What a Wonderful Trio! – First Impression Music DXD" Archived 2015-01-31 at the Wayback Machine. Audiophile Audition.
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