Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band’s Kogun

Download or read book Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band’s Kogun written by E. Taylor Atkins and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2024-10-17 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the 1974 album Kogun by the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band, this book assesses not just its importance in jazz history but also its part in public remembrance of World War II in Japan. In 1974 a Japanese soldier emerged from the Philippine jungle where he had hidden for three decades, unconvinced that World War II had ended. Later that year, the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band released its first album, Kogun (“solitary soldier”), the title track of which adopted music from medieval Japanese no theater for the first time in a jazz context as aural commemoration of his experience. At a time when big band jazz was mostly a vehicle for nostalgia and no longer regarded as a vital art, the album was heralded as a revelation. Kogun elevated Akiyoshi's reputation as a brilliant composer/arranger and earned Tabackin acclaim as a compelling, versatile improviser on tenor saxophone and flute.