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is a Japanese
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
pianist, composer and arranger.


Early life

Satoh was born in Tokyo on 6 October 1941. His mother was Setsu and his father, who owned small businesses, was Yoshiaki Satoh. The house that his family moved into in 1944 contained a piano; Masahiko started playing it at the age of five. He began playing the piano professionally at the age of 17,Schofield, John (8 October 1991), "Pianist Infuses Jazz with Japanese Spirit", ''The Wall Street Journal'', p. A20. "accompanying singers, magicians and strippers at a cabaret in the
Ginza Ginza ( ; ) is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, Tokyo, Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi. It is a popular upscale shopping area of Tokyo ...
district".


Later life and career

By 1959 Satoh was playing in Georgie Kawaguchi's band, together with alto saxophonist Sadao Watanabe and tenor saxophonist Akira Miyazawa. Satoh graduated from
Keio University , abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It was originally established as a school for Rangaku, Western studies in 1858 in Edo. It was granted university status in 1920, becomi ...
.Iwanami, Yozo; Sugiyama, Kazunor
"Sato, Masahiko"
''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'' (2nd ed.). Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 February 2015. (Subscription required).
At the age of 26, Satoh moved to the United States to study at the
Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music () is a Private university, private music college in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern Music of the United ...
. He stayed for two years, during which he read about composing and arranging. He earned money working in a food shop and playing the piano in a hotel. In 1968 he wrote the music for, and conducted, a series of pieces that were combined with dance and performed in New York. After returning to Japan, he recorded ''Palladium'', his first album as leader, and appeared on a
Helen Merrill Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic; July 21, 1929) is an American jazz vocalist. Her first album, the eponymous 1954 recording ''Helen Merrill (album), Helen Merrill'' (with Clifford Brown on EmArcy), was an immediate success and associat ...
album. In his early career in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Satoh played in a free, percussive style. Satoh played at the 1971
Berlin Jazz Festival JazzFest Berlin (also known as the Berlin Jazz Festival) is a jazz festival in Berlin, Germany. Originally called the "Berliner Jazztage" (''Berlin Jazz Days''), it was founded in 1964 in West Berlin by the Berliner Festspiele. Venues included B ...
as part of a trio; he used a then-unusual
ring modulator In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple wa ...
to alter the sound. Also in the early 1970s, he recorded with
Attila Zoller Attila Cornelius Zoller (June 13, 1927 – January 25, 1998) was a Hungarian jazz guitarist. After World War II, he escaped the Soviet takeover of Hungary by fleeing through the mountains on foot into Austria. In 1959, he moved to the United Sta ...
,
Karl Berger Karl Hans Berger (March 30, 1935 – April 9, 2023) was a German-American jazz pianist, vibraphonist, composer, and educator. He was a leading figure in jazz improvisation from the 1960s when he settled in the United States for life. He founde ...
, and
Albert Mangelsdorff Albert Mangelsdorff (September 5, 1928 – July 25, 2005) was a German jazz trombonist. Working mainly in free jazz, he was an innovator in multiphonics. Early life Mangelsdorff was born in Frankfurt on September 5, 1928, as the son of the book ...
. He wrote the psychedelic music for the 1973 anime film ''
Belladonna of Sadness is a 1973 Japanese adult animated drama film produced by the animation studio Mushi Production and distributed by Nippon Herald Films. It is the third and final entry in Mushi Production's adult-oriented '' Animerama'' trilogy, following '' ...
''.Brenner, Robert (4 May 2016
"Movie Review: Belladonna of Sadness"
Huffington Post.
Satoh has written arrangements for recordings led by, among others, Merrill,
Kimiko Itoh is a Japanese jazz singer. She was born on the island of Shikoku in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from Musashino Art University with a degree in oil painting, she studied under Yasushi Sawada. In 1982, she made her debut with h ...
, and Nancy Wilson. He also arranged for strings and quartet on
Art Farmer Arthur Stewart Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, doub ...
's 1983 album ''Maiden Voyage''. In 1990 Satoh formed a large group, named Rantooga, that combined various forms of folk musics from around the world. In the early 1990s he composed music for a choir of 1,000 Buddhist monks. In the early 1990s he was reported as stating that 70% of his time was spent on arranging and composing, and the rest on playing and recording.


Compositions

Satoh has composed for film, television and advertisements. For instance, he made the music of Kanashimi no Belladonna, a film in which the sound is very important; all the songs of this movie are performed by his wife,
Chinatsu Nakayama Chinatsu Nakayama is a Japanese voice actress, writer, and politician. Biography Nakayama was born in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan on July 13, 1948. She began acting on stage as a child in 1955, then her family moved to Tokyo with the encouragemen ...
. Some of his compositions are influenced by the space in the works of composer
Toru Takemitsu TORU or Toru may refer to: *TORU, spacecraft system *Tōru (given name), Japanese male given name *Toru, Pakistan, village in Mardan District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan *Tõru Tõru is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County in western Es ...
. Satoh has also composed for traditional Japanese instruments, including the
shakuhachi A is a Japanese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo. The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the .
and
biwa The is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. The is a plucked string instrument that first gained popularity in China before spreading throughout East Asia, eventually reaching Japan sometime durin ...
.


Discography

An asterisk (*) after the year indicates that it is the year of release.


As leader/co-leader


As sideman


In popular culture

A fictionalized version of Masahiko Satoh appears in
Izumi Suzuki was a Japanese writer and actress, known for her science fiction stories and essays on Japanese pop culture. Married to avant-garde saxophonist Kaoru Abe from 1973 to 1977, she is also known for her association with photographer Nobuyoshi Arak ...
's short story "Hey, It's a Love Psychedelic!" as the narrator's love interest.


References

;Bibliography * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Satoh, Masahiko 1941 births 20th-century Japanese pianists 20th-century jazz composers 21st-century Japanese pianists 21st-century jazz composers Composers from Tokyo Japanese jazz composers Japanese jazz pianists Living people People from Sumida Keio University alumni