Itaru Oki

Itaru Oki ( Japanese 沖 至 , Oki Itaru ; born September 10, 1941 in Suma-ku , Kobe , Hyōgo Prefecture ; † August 25, 2020 in Paris ) was a Japanese jazz trumpeter and cornet player . He belonged to the first generation of free jazz in Japan .
Live and act
Oki came from a musical family; his father played shakuhachi and his mother was a koto master. After starting out in classical music, he switched to trumpet in high school when he was fourteen. He first played in the brass band of his school before he became a student of Fumio Nanri , an important jazz musician in Japan. As an architecture student , he was a member of a Dixieland band in 1959 . In 1964 he became interested in modern jazz and participated in a workshop by Kenny Dorham in Osaka ; the following year he moved to Tokyo, where he took courses from Sadao Watanabe .
Oki became a professional jazz musician and played in various Japanese bands. In 1969 he came to Europe for the first time as a member of the Kanno Group , where he performed at the Ljubljana Jazz Festival . Then he was a member of Masahiko Togashi's ESSG band . In 1974 he settled in France, first in Paris and later in Lyon . From there he toured frequently with the group Message from Japan . In 1977 he performed with Noah Howard's quartet in Berlin (live album Schizophrenic Blues ) and founded a trio with Michel Pilz and Buschi Niebergall . He also played with Alan Silva , Noel McGhie , François Cotinaud , Tchangodei / Kent Carter , Sunny Murray and Claudine François and led his own groups. In Germany, Itaru has performed with the dancer Tadashi Endo and the pianist Masahiko Satō as well as in a quartet with Michel Pilz, Christian Ramond and Klaus Kugel .
Discographic notes
- Phantom Note (1975; Offbeat / doubtmusic, with Yoshiaki Fujikawa, Keiki Midorikawa , Hozumi Tanaka )
- Mirage (1977; Polystar, with Takashi Kako , Keiki Midorikawa, Masahiko Togashi )
- One Year - Afternoon & Evening (1979; FMP , with Michel Pilz and Ralf R. Hübner )
- Texture Sextet , Polygammes (1983) with François Cotinaud, Denis Colin , Didier Petit, Michel Coffi, Pierre Jacquet
- Michel Pilz Quartet: Jamabiko (1983; Trion, with B. Niebergall and Muhammad Ali )
- Tchangodei / Itaru Oki / Kent Carter Jeux d'Ombres (Volcanic Records 1993)
- Concert with Strings (Whats New 1998, with Takeshi Shibuya , Keiki Midorikawa , Hideaki Mochizuki , Yasuhiro Shibagaki )
- Live (2004; Polystar, with Keizo Nobori, Natsuki Tamura , Satoko Fujii , Hiroshi Funato, Jin Mitsuda)
- Nobusiko (2010; Improvising Beings) with Benjamin Duboc
- Chorui Zukann (2014; Improvising Beings, solo)
- Itaru Oki, Axel Dörner : Root of Bohemian (Improvising Beings 2015)
- Itaru Oki, Lena Circus: Zanshin (Improvising Beings 2016), with Antoine Letellier, Guillaume Arbonville, Nicolas Moulin
- Itaru Oki, Nobuyoshi Ino , Choi Sun Bae: Kami Fusen ( NoBusiness Records 2017)
Lexigraphic entries
- Page no longer available , search in web archives: Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians ) (
Web links
- Alan Cummings: Itaru Oki 1941-2020. The Wire, August 30, 2020, accessed August 30, 2020 .
- Biography (English)
- Review of the album Live (English)
- Itaru Oki at Discogs (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eyal Haruveni, Itaru Oki (沖 至,) (1941-2020) RIP , freejazzblog.org, August 26, 2020
- ↑ Obituary (Asahi Shimbun)
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Oki, Itaru |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 沖 至 (Japanese) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese jazz trumpeter and cornet player |
DATE OF BIRTH | September 10, 1941 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Suma-ku , Kobe , Hyogo Prefecture |
DATE OF DEATH | August 25, 2020 |
Place of death | Paris |