Toshiko Akiyoshi is a Japanese American jazz pianist, composer/arranger and bandleader. Among a very few successful female instrumentalists of her generation in jazz, she is also recognized as a major figure in jazz composition. Toshiko Akiyoshi was born in Manchuria, China, and was considering a career in medicine when her family returned to live in Japan. "Japan was still heavily occupied then, and our resort city of Beppu was flooded with soldiers. Read more on Last.fm