Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin
b. 26 March 1940, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Tabackin studied music extensively—at high school, the Philadelphia Conservatory and privately—before beginning his playing career in 1965. He played tenor saxophone and flute with various bands in and around New York, including those led by Tal Farlow, Maynard Ferguson, Clark Terry, Cab Calloway, the band led by Larry and Les Elgart, the Thad Jones- Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and the rehearsal bands of Duke Pearson and Chuck Israels. He also led his own small group and was also active in the east coast television studios. In the late '60s he was briefly in Europe, playing and teaching in Germany and Denmark. In 1970 he began a musical, and eventually personal relationship with Toshiko Akiyoshi. After their marriage he was principal soloist with their orchestra, which was based in Los Angeles during the '70s and in New York from the early '80s. In the late '80s and early '90s he was frequently on tour around the world, usually as a single. A superb technician on tenor saxophone, Tabackin's powerful playing style contains echoes of several of his influences, most strikingly Sonny Rollins. He is, however, a distinctive and accomplished performer in his own right. His solos, often dazzling and lengthy unaccompanied cadenzas interpolated into Akiyoshi's frequently complex charts, are filled with extraordinarily fluent and brilliantly executed ideas. In contrast Tabackin's flute playing gleams with softly executed yet vivid concepts. In addition to his albums with the Akiyoshi-Tabackin band, he has also recorded with Bill Berry (who was instrumental in introducing Tabackin and Akiyoshi to one another), with Louie Bellson, fellow tenorist Warne Marsh, Toshiyuki Miyama and his New Herd on VINTAGE TENOR, and with his own small groups.