Check Out My New Website!!
http://uzeki.com/Yoichi Uzeki (Pianist, Arranger, Composer and Train Lover)
Born in Tokyo in 1976. Yoichi started taking classical piano lessons and loving trains at the age of three. He started playing jazz and traveling around Japan by train at the freshman year of Hosei University in Tokyo.
After Yoichi joined one of the best college big bands in Japan called "Waseda University High Society Orchestra" in 1998, he won every contest he appeared as a pianist of the band including two consecutive (in1998, 1999) first prizes of Yamano Big Band Contest, which is considered the nationwide annual college big band contest in Japan. His big band arrangement of "Spain" is on their live recording CD also called "Spain" in 2000.
Yoichi purposely chose Richmond VA to study English and no train funning at first. He moved to Philadelphia to study at Temple University and had great teachers such as Terell Stafford, Tom Lawton, Bruce Barth and Bill Cunliffe. Some features during Philadelphia-era includes two Villanova Jazz Festival Soloist Awards (both small group and large ensemble) in 2002, recording of a Temple University Jazz Band CD "Mean What you Say," which includes his big band piece "Not a Love Song" in 2003, providing an arrangement of "I've never been in love before" for a performance with a legendary saxophonist and flutist Frank Wess at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia in 2004, performing Steinway and Sons' "Peace Piano" at WRTI radio in Philadelphia, performing weekly with world-known bassist, Jamaaladeen Tacuma including a performance at West Oak Lane Jazz Festival and joining Amtrak "Guest Rewards."
His love of larger subway and train system and jazz made him finally move to New York City in 2005. Yoichi went to Queens College CUNY and received a master's degree in 2006 and recieved "Sir Roland Hanna Award" in 2007.
Currently, Yoichi is a member of legendary saxophonist and composer, Oliver Lake's Big Band and a piano faculty at York College CUNY, performs around New York City, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Washington DC and Tokyo. He have performed with Terell Stafford, Oliver Lake, Michael Phillip Mossman, Antonio Hart, Cecil Bridgewater, Joan Cartwright, George Gray, Ray Vega, Tim Warfield Jr., Bobby Porcelli, Manny Duran, Peter Brainin, Michael Hawkins, Walter Bell and among others. He also provids arrangements to school bands as well as professional big bands such as Waseda High Society Orchestra and Tim Armacost's Brooklyn Big Band. He will join Jamaaladeen Tacuma's Coltrane Configurations Europe Tour this April.
