Before she formed her highly influential and innovative big band with husband Lew Tabackin, Toshiko Akiyoshi was a hard bop pianist highly inspired by Bud Powell. This two dis set shows her in both trio and quartet format, and she is a formidable creature.
Herb Ellis/g, Ray Brown/b and JC Heard join up with Akiyoshi in 1953 for concise reads of originals like the lithe “Solidado” and bluesy “Toshiko’s Blues” while her read of the Ellingtonian “Squatty Roo” is rich and clever. She also does a rare solo, quite impressive, on “Laura”. A 1956 trio with Paul Chambers/b and Ed Thigpen/dr consists mostly of originals like the plaful “Between Me and Myself” and more exotic “Soshu Yakyuko” and “Kyo-shu”, a portend of ideas to come in her more orchestral years. Thesam year she’s with Oscal Pettiford/ b and Roy Haynes” for a dark “No Moon At All” and bouncy “Thou Swell”.
In 1957 with Gene Cherico/b and Jack Hanna/dr she’s captured at the Newport Jazz Festival, and stretches out on “I’ll Remember April” and “Lover” while in the studio delivers a rich journey on “Tosh’s Fantasy”. Last but not least is Akiyoshi on TV with Eddie Safranski/b and Ed Thigpen/dr on a concise “The 3rd Movement” and Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”. The beauty of this set is that you hear the marrow and core of ideas that came later to be filled out on her 1970s albums with full jazz orchestra. Here are the seeds, already fertile.