''Long Yellow Road'' and the nearly identical release, ''Tosiko Akiyosi Recital'' is a jazz trio recording made by the jazz pianist

Toshiko Akiyoshi is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. Akiyoshi received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in ''Down Beat'' magazine's annual Readers' Poll. In 1984, sh ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

in February 1961.

Release history

A total of five tracks were recorded at a 1961 February 'recital' in

and were released by

Asahi Sonorama is the publishing arm of The Asahi Shimbun Company, publishing books, magazines, and manga. It replaced on 1 April 2008 just after it went bankrupt. History Asahi Sonorama was created as a division of Asahi Shimbunsha on September 9, 1959, ...

and King Records in various formats and combinations at various times. The first track released, "Solveig's Song", was distributed in Japan as a "sonosheet" (a.k.a. "phonosheet" or

Flexi disc The flexi disc (also known as a phonosheet, Sonosheet or Soundsheet, a trademark) is a phonograph record made of a thin, flexible vinyl sheet with a molded-in spiral stylus groove, and is designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntable. ...

) in the 1961 April issue of a monthly Asahi Sonorama music publication. The other four tracks were released a few days later in a special edition sonosheet "book" (Japanese Title: = ''Long Yellow Road, Toshiko Akiyoshi Homecoming Commemorative Special Edition''). A standard LP

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

version containing all five tracks was released under the title ''Long Yellow Road'' (not to be confused with later Toshiko Akiyoshi

quartet In music, a quartet (, , , , ) is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers. Classical String quartet In classical music, one of the most common combinations of four instruments in chamber music is the string quartet. String quar ...

and

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

recordings of the same title, '' Long Yellow Road''). Another version, containing most of the same tracks from the same session, was also released in Japan under the title, ''Tosiko Akiyosi Recital''. All five tracks from the original session as well as all six tracks from 1961's '' Toshiko Meets Her Old Pals'' were later combined on a single CD released in Japan by King Records as '' 1961 - Toshiko Akiyoshi, a History of King Jazz Recordings''.

Track listing

LP side A #"Long Yellow Road" (Akiyoshi) – 5:35 ''(b, c, d)'' #"Hakone Twilight" (Akiyoshi) – 5:30 ''(b, c, later re-release of 'd')'' #"Kisarazu Jinku" () (traditional) – 5:45 ''(b, c, d)'' LP side B #"

Solveig's Song ''Peer Gynt'', Op. 23, is the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play ''Peer Gynt'', written by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in 1875. It premiered along with the play on 24 February 1876 in Christiania (now Oslo). Grieg later ...

" (

Grieg Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of N ...

) – 5:49 ''(a, c, d)'' #" Deep River" (traditional) – 5:05 ''(b, c, d)'' a) Sonosheet, Asahi Sonorama 1961 April edition (pub: 1961 March 21)
b) Sonosheet, Asahi Sonorama special edition (pub: 1961 March 30)
c) ''Long Yellow Road'' (Asahi Sonorama LP)
d) ''Tosiko Akiyosi Recital'' (Asahi Sonorama)

Personnel

– piano *

Eddie Marshall Edwin "Eddie" Marshall (April 13, 1938 – September 7, 2011Obituary
) was an American

– drums *

Gene Cherico Eugene Valentino Cherico (April 15, 1935, Buffalo, New York – August 12, 1994, Santa Monica, California) was an American jazz double-bassist. Cherico played drums as a child and played in a special services band in the Army, but injured his ha ...

– double bass

References

{{Authority control 1961 albums Toshiko Akiyoshi albums King Records (Japan) albums