Sumi Tonooka

Born on Oct 3, 1956 in Philadelphia, PA, contemporary mainstream jazz pianist Sumi Tonooka started her musical research at age group seven in the hometown Settlement Music College with Ester Cinberg and Gary Goldschneider. We were young inside a multi-cultural home, her African-American dad and Japanese-American mom revealed her to different strains of tradition, but there have been plenty of contemporary jazz LPs around she home. She was launched to live jazz hearing a changing overall performance of Thelonious Monk when she was 13. Duke Ellington was also a big impact, and she became near local story Kenny Barron. Tonooka remaining house briefly at age group 15 at risk of Boston, but was quickly disenfranchised with formal education. She continuing her traditional lessons there in personal classes with Madame Margaret Chaloff — mom of famous baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff — in addition to jazz and structure with Charlie Banacos. She after that remaining for Detroit, collaborating with Marcus Belgrave and discovering the wealthy but stressed jazz picture there within the middle-’70s. A roller coaster trip continuing as she came back to Philadelphia, making her B.A, in music from your Philadelphia University of Executing Arts, functioning under French expert pianist Bernard Peiffer. She got a specialist gig with Le Grand Prix, the operating combo led by Philly Joe Jones including Odean Pope, and led her personal bands offering Robin Eubanks and Willie Williams. Finally away to rough-and-tumble NEW YORK, she required lessons in jazz with Mary Lou Williams, Dennis Sandole, and Stanley Cowell. Tonooka worked well occasionally over time with Kenny Burrell, Small Jimmy Scott, Sonny Lot of money, Craig Useful, and David “Fathead” Newman. At the moment she established a successful and long-term musical romantic relationship with bassist Rufus Reid, and an identical bandstand collaboration with violinist John Blake, both still ongoing for over 2 decades. She gets put into her réamounté the rating of music for over twelve films, some shown on PBS, like the Academy Honor — nominated Family members Gathering by Lise Yasui, and Daring to Resist by Martha Lubell. Tonooka’s profession continues to be chronicled in jazz books Living he Jazz Existence by Royal Stokes, ln as soon as by Francis Davis, and Madame Jazz by Leslie Gourse, all released by Oxford University or college Press. She’s been teaching piano at Bard University as well as the Dutchess Community University within the Hudson Valley of NY, and is a substitute instructor for Kenny Barron at Rutgers School.