Hidehiko "Sleepy" Matsumoto (松本英彦) (October 12, 1926,

Okayama is the capital city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan. The city was founded on June 1, 1889. , the city has an estimated population of 720,841 and a population density of 910 persons per km2. The total area is . The city is ...

– February 29, 2000, Tokyo) was a Japanese

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

saxophonist and bandleader. Matsumoto played

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...

in Japan in the late 1940s with the group CB Nine, then joined The Six Josés and The Big Four, a group which included

George Kawaguchi Joji "George" Kawaguchi (川口譲二) (June 15, 1927, Fukakusa, Kyoto - November 1, 2003, Tokyo) was a Japanese jazz drummer and bandleader. Kawaguchi was raised in Dairen, Manchukuo, at that time a Japanese-occupied territory. He played in his f ...

Hachidai Nakamura was a Japanese songwriter and jazz pianist. Biography Hachidai Nakamura was born in Tsingtao, Republic of China, to Japanese parents, before moving to Kurume at a young age, where he attended high school. He graduated from Waseda University in ...

, and Mitsuru Ono. In 1959 he became a member of

Hideo Shiraki Hideo Shiraki (; 1 January 1933, in Tokyo – 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, he later explored world music and became a pioneer of fusing t ...

's small ensemble, and played with

Gerald Wilson Gerald Stanley Wilson (September 4, 1918 – September 8, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. Born in Mississippi, he was based in Los Angeles from the early 1940s. In addition to being a ...

at the 1963

Monterey Jazz Festival The Monterey Jazz Festival is an annual music festival that takes place in Monterey, California, United States. It debuted on October 3, 1958, championed by Dave Brubeck and co-founded by jazz and popular music critic Ralph J. Gleason and jaz ...

and

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. ...

in 1964. Starting in 1964 he led his own ensembles, which have included as sidemen

Takeshi Inomata Takeshi Inomata ( jap. 猪俣猛, ''Inomata Takeshi''; born February 6, 1936, Takarazuka) is a Japanese jazz drummer and bandleader. Inomata moved to Tokyo in 1956 and there played in the Six Joses and the West Liners. He worked as a leader reg ...

Akira Miyazawa Akira Miyazawa (宮沢昭) (December 6, 1927 in Matsumoto – July 6, 2000 in Tokyo) was a Japanese jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and flautist. Miyazawa played as a teenager in Japanese military bands during World War II, then embarked on a career ...

George Otsuka was a Japanese jazz drummer. Early life On April 6, 1937, Otsuka was born in Tokyo, Japan. Career Otsuka first began playing professionally with Sadao Watanabe's quartet toward the end of the 1950s. He worked for several years with Hidehiko ...

, and

Isao Suzuki was a Japanese jazz double-bassist. Biography Born in Tokyo, Japan, Suzuki learned to play bass on United States military bases, and played early in his career with Shotaro Moriyasu, Hidehiko Matsumoto, and Sadao Watanabe. He led his own ensem ...

. On July 22 and 24, 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.

References

*"Hidehiko Matsumoto". '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''. 2nd edition, ed.

Barry Kernfeld Barry Dean Kernfeld (born August 11, 1950) is an American musicologist and jazz saxophonist who has researched and published extensively about the history of jazz and the biographies of its musicians. Education In 1968, Kernfeld enrolled at U ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Matsumoto, Hidehiko Japanese jazz saxophonists Japanese jazz bandleaders 1926 births 2000 deaths 20th-century saxophonists