Yagi Masao (八木正生, Yagi Masao, November 14, 1932 – March 4, 1991) was a Japanese pianist who became devoted to American jazz very early in the wave of Japanese jazz enthusiasm. He became a member of the Cozy Quartet in 1956 after Toshiko Akiyoshi's departure, playing alongside Sadao Watanabe.[1] Robin Kelley, in his biography of Thelonious Monk, says that before his inaugural 1963 tour, "Monk's greatest champion in Japan was not a critic but a pianist named Yagi Masao. In 1959, the twenty-six-year-old pianist formed his own group featuring several Monk tunes in their repertoire, culminating in his debut LP, Masao Yagi Plays Thelonious Monk, recorded in the summer of 1960."[2] Later in the 1960s he played with Charlie Mariano, Hidehiko Matsumoto, and Helen Merrill, and in the 1970s led his own ensembles. He was well-known as a composer and arranger, and wrote copiously for film soundtracks.

References

  1. ↑ Yozo Iwanami and Kazunori Sugiyama. "Masao Yagi". The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. 2nd edition, ed. Barry Kernfeld.
  2. ↑ Kelley, Robin D. G. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (New York: Free Press, 2009), p. 338.


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