Hideo Shiraki (; 1 January 1933, in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

– 31 August 1972) was a Japanese jazz drummer and bandleader, best known for his work in the 1950s and 1960s. Famed earlier on for

hard bop Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospe ...

, he later explored world music and became a pioneer of fusing traditional music forms with jazz structuring. He emerged in the new Japanese jazz scene of the 1950s that grew out of the influence of the US occupying forces. He studied percussion at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and, during this period, played with Masashi Nagao's Blue Coats. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, his quintet was popular in Japan and was associated with the "funky boom" craze for

. Hidehiko "Sleepy" Matsumoto,

Terumasa Hino is a Japanese jazz trumpeter. He is considered one of Japan's finest jazz musicians. His instruments include the trumpet, cornet, and flügelhorn. Early life He was born in Tokyo, Japan, and his father was a trumpeter and tap dancer. Hino start ...

and Yuzuru Sera all passed through his quintet. Notable albums include 1961's ''In Fiesta'' (Teichiku Japan), which included a version of

Benny Golson Benny Golson (born January 25, 1929) is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He came to prominence with the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, more as a writer than a performer, before launch ...

's "Five Spot After Dark". Performers on the album included Hidehiko Matsumoto on tenor and flute and Yuzuru Sera on piano. 1965's ''Sakura Sakura'' united the quintet (including Terumasa Hino on trumpet) with three female

koto Koto may refer to: * Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group * Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument * Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana * Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women * K ...

players as Shiraki moved into a world jazz approach. An invited November 1965 performance at the Berlin Jazz Festival, organised by

Joachim-Ernst Berendt Joachim-Ernst Berendt (20 July 1922 in Berlin – 4 February 2000 in Hamburg) was a German music journalist, author and producer specialized on jazz. Life Berendt's father, Ernst Berendt, was a Protestant pastor belonging to the Confessing ...

, saw the quintet work with a koto quartet and was feted for mixing jazz with traditional Japanese music. He also played with

Toshiko Akiyoshi is a Japanese–American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. Akiyoshi received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in ''Down Beat'' magazine's annual Readers' Poll. ...

, including two tracks on her 1961 album '' Toshiko Meets Her Old Pals''. On July 22, 1966, he played with the

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...

quintet in Tokyo while the group was touring Japan.

Sources

Jazz.com Encyclopedia of jazz musicians

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shiraki, Hideo Japanese jazz bandleaders Jazz drummers Hard bop drummers Musicians from Tokyo 1933 births 1972 deaths 20th-century Japanese musicians 20th-century drummers