Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band -- Kogun（孤軍）

 

When I saw jazz pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi's（秋吉敏子）name appear on NHK's 9 pm evening broadcast this morning, I assumed the worst considering the number of musicians that have passed away even in the first few months of 2023 and frankly the lady is 93 years old. However, I was happy to find out that the feature on Akiyoshi was a piece on her longevity and her jazz prowess. Whew!

However, I did have one beef about the five-minute piece on Akiyoshi. The pianist has been married to tenor saxophonist and flutist Lew Tabackin since 1969 and together they formed the Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band in 1973 covering Big Band and BeBop. Tabackin himself was shown wielding his instruments during some of the performance coverage on NHK. And yet, in their home, Tabackin was merely introduced via graphics as "Husband: Lew" and the short snippet of conversation merely had Tabackin answer his wife's query on what he was going to have for dinner (pork). Yeah, I know the focus was on Akiyoshi, but still...

One of the songs by Akiyoshi that was played during the report at a recent concert at Lincoln Center in New York City last month was "Kogun" (Forlorn Force) which apparently was based upon those Japanese soldiers who had been so deep in their lives in the jungle that they never found out about the end of World War II and just kept on maintaining their posts for decades. What the report didn't say was that "Kogun" had been the title track of the first album by Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band, released in August 1974.

Listening to "Kogun" (which lasts for a little over 8 minutes) a few times already, it seems to melodically describe the old forgotten soldier waking up to his usual day but then somehow getting discovered by society and thrown pell-mell into the world of the 1970s. To match the fear and bewilderment of the soldier, I would have thought the jazz to be have been more free and cacophonous but the tight swing in the arrangements had me thinking that he was probably OK surrounded by a group of supporters to help guide him back into civilization. In the last quarter of the song, I'm assuming that it's Tabackin on the flute illustrating the soldier's processing of what he's seen, heard, felt and smelled of late 20th-century society before there's a melding of the intro's traditional and the jazz.

Toshiko Akiyoshi -- So What?

One of the many flaws that I have is that I often get a little too carried away with my YouTube browsing to the extent that the video sharing service should be called Mine-Mine-MineTube instead. I simply get overly fixated on watching a series of videos, and last night, that fixation was the old American TV game show "What's My Line?".

"What's My Line?" was a long-running show and in fact, it's probably one of the longest-running game shows in American history that ran for the first time (revivals were tried out later on) between 1950 and 1967. One of my Facebook pals asked me in shock and horror point blank how old (or ancient) I really was considering that I distinctly remember that first run, but it was only within the last couple of years of the show that I was existent on this Earth. However, I do remember the format and panelists like Arlene Francis and Kitty Carlisle. Apparently, though, going through a number of the episodes on YouTube, perhaps the most famous and sharpest panelist to ever grace "What's My Line?", journalist Dorothy Kilgallen passed away only a few weeks after my birth. This caused a special episode to be aired where the atmosphere was not surprisingly very sad.

The same situation had occurred several years earlier in the show's run when another popular panelist, comedian Fred Allen, died suddenly from a heart attack in 1956. Moderator John Charles Daly and the rest of the panel were devastated to say the least, but from Allen's widow's request, "What's My Line?" went on as scheduled. Still, although the guests came on with their usual self-effacing grace, it must have been a somewhat awkward experience considering the circumstances, but Daly and everybody welcomed everyone with the same level of grace.

At 19:00 of the above video for the March 18th 1956 episode, one of those guests came on in Japanese dress and signed her name in kanji which got some amusement from the audience (I'm sure it was all planned for the mystery), and that person was a 26-year-old jazz pianist named Toshiko Akiyoshi（穐吉敏子）to my surprise. And to provide some of my proud Canadiana here, she had been discovered in Tokyo by Canada's own Oscar Peterson.

Following this particular "What's My Line?" episode, my initial thoughts had been to write about another tune by wonderful J-R&B singer Monday Michiru, the daughter of Akiyoshi. But then, I gave myself a Gibbs slap upside my head and said "Wait a minute!". I've got quite a few jazz singers and musicians represented here on the blog, so why not have Akiyoshi in here as well?

Well, I took a look around....and yep, this was after a shower and all those "What's My Line?" episodes past midnight. I eventually encountered her 1961 album "Toshiko Meets Her Old Pals", and from it, I've decided to go with her quintet's cover of Miles Davis' "So What?" originally recorded in 1959. Aside from Akiyoshi, the only other recognizable figure in the group of five was legendary saxophonist Sadao Watanabe（渡辺貞夫）.

From reading some of the comments for her take on "So What?", which seems to be a plaintive demand from the wood bass to be let into the conversation among the more notable instruments (kinda like a little brother trying to get in on the action with his big brother and his buddies, much to their eye-rolling chagrin), Akiyoshi has gotten a lot of praise but also some bricks for her cover, and to be honest, it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to upstage Davis. However, as I'm creating this, I'm playing "So What?", and it's given my typing a nice little skip-beat. Furthermore, considering that of all of the instruments used in jazz, it's the bass that I remember first hearing thumping away as a toddler so it's nice to get the instrument get its due here, although I'm also appreciating that sax solo.

Gotta say, though. The original "So What?" by Davis is so cool that it feels like I've been given this secret invitation to a secret jazz club in Manhattan to hear this.