An acclaimed bandleader refocuses on her instrument and finds she's still got the chops.

By Ed Hazell
Berklee.edu Correspondent
June 2, 2004

	Toshiko Akiyoshi
	Photo by Phil Farnsworth

Throughout her Piano Week lecture and demonstration at the Berklee Performance Center, Akiyoshi emphasized the importance of practicing to help develop muscular control and a personal style. Even today, at age 74, she says she's got more to learn. That's why after three decades at the helm of the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabakin Big Band, with which she recorded two dozen albums and and received 14 Grammy nominations, she decided to give it up and return to her first love: the piano.

"I've been away from it for almost 30 years," she said. "I've played a lot of solos, but it's not the same thing as playing with a trio or quartet. And I thought, this is unfair, I'm 74 years old, I think I can get better. One great thing about playing, you can't say 'Oh yeah, I got it,' and then sleep all day. That's the wonderful thing about jazz. There is no end. There is always something to perfect."

During introductory comments, Piano Department Chair Stephany Tiernan noted that Akiyoshi's appearance was something of a homecoming. She began her career as an international jazz star at Berklee when she arrived from Japan on a full scholarship in 1956. Located on Newbury Street, the school had just over 300 students, most of them professional musicians who were studying on the GI Bill. Within months of her arrival, Akiyoshi herself was playing four nights at week at Storyville, a jazz club in Kenmore Square. She was one of the school's first international students and one of its first female students as well. She credited the school with giving her the knowledge of theory and habits of discipline that served her well over the years.

Three years before her arrival, the young keyboard phenomenon had recorded an album for Norman Granz, then she met Tony Texiera, a young GI guitarist from Boston.

"He told me about the school," she told students. "It was during the occupation, and I used to play with the American soldiers who were musicians. Some were famous, others not so famous, but they were all very good players. I was a big frog in a very small pond, but I knew that I needed to improve. It's very important at a young age, to surround yourself with better players. That's how you learn."

Akiyoshi's last extended visit to Berklee came in 1998, when she received an honorary doctor of music degree. Photo by Phil Farnsworth

Akiyoshi mentioned several advantages to regular practicing. "There was a great Japanese sword fighter, Miyamoto Musashi, who wrote The Book of Five Rings," said Akiyoshi. "The interesting thing is there are commonalities between sword fighting and improvising. He says that training is the most important thing, and that by practicing, practicing, practicing, when the time comes, you react correctly. In his case, if he doesn't react in the correct way, he dies. For a player, if you don't react the right way, you say, 'Shoot, I didn't do it right.' What I'm trying to say is that it's so important to play every day and practice every day. What you're doing is training your reflexes."

Besides developing good reflexes, Akiyoshi said that the physical conditioning of practicing is important.

"If you don't have the muscle, you can't play," she said. "I found out it's hard to develop, but easy to lose. There's a saying that if you don't practice for one day, you know it; if you don't practice for two days, your partners will know it; if you don't practice for three days, the audience will know it. At a minimum, you have to keep the muscle."

Practicing also helps you develop a personal sound, she said. "Every day I try to work on my own language and try to develop my own idiosyncrasies. That's what I owe it to work on. To build idiosyncrasies, you have to practice a lot. Perhaps at the beginning you don't deliberately try to bring out your idiosyncrasies, but by doing it, you start to develop something."

Ed Hazell is a freelance jazz writer whose work appears in the Boston Phoenix, Jazziz, Berklee Today, and other magazines. He is the author of Berklee: The First 50 Years.