Shōtaro Moriyasu
Shōtarō Moriyasu ( Japanese 守 安 祥 太郎 , Moriyasu Shōtarō ; * January 5, 1924 in Tokyo Prefecture ; † September 25, 1955 there ) was a Japanese jazz pianist . Stylistically based on Bud Powell , he was considered one of the pioneers of modern jazz in Japan.
Live and act
Shōtarō Moriyasu was a self-taught pianist, although his parents were connected to music. He began his career as a musician as a jazz pianist in nightclubs shortly after the end of World War II and took over the bebop from musicians at the American military bases . In the following years he worked in the bands of Shungo Sawada and Nobuo Hara ; he also arranged Sharps and Flats for Hara's Ensemble . In 1955, Moriyasu committed suicide when he threw himself in front of a moving train at the age of 31. In the field of jazz, the discographer Tom Lord lists him in seven recording sessions in 1954, exclusively his participation in July 1954 in the Macambo sessions for Japanese radio from the Tokyo jazz club of the same name. Two tracks ( I Want to Be Happy and It's Only a Paper Moon ) were posthumously released on the EP Shotaro Moriyasu Memorial in the year after Moriyasu's death .
Discographic notes
- The Historic Mocambo Session '54 (Rockwell), with Tatsuro Watanabe , Akira Miyazawa , Seiji Hiraoka , Masayuki Takayanagi , Hisao Suzuki , Kanji Harada
Lexical entry
- Kazunori Sugiyama, Shotaro Moriyasu . In: Barry Kernfeld (Ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz . London, MacMillan, 2002.
Web links
- Shōtarō Moriyasu at Discogs (English)
- Entry at Jazzdiscography.org
Individual evidence
- ^ The Oxford Companion to Jazz , edited by Bill Kirchner . Oxford University Press 2000, p. 566
- ↑ Tom Lord: The Jazz Discography (online, accessed August 27, 2017)
- ^ E. Taylor Atkins: Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan . University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1997, 2001, p. 317
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Moriyasu, Shōtarō |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 守 安祥 太郎 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese jazz musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 5, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tokyo prefecture |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 25, 1955 |
| Place of death | Tokyo prefecture |