Toshiko Akiyoshi has been played on NTS over 10 times, featured on 11 episodes and was first played on 9 October 2014.

Toshiko Akiyoshi is a Japanese American jazz pianist, composer/arranger and bandleader. Among a very few successful female instrumentalists of her generation in jazz, she is also recognized as a major figure in jazz composition.

Toshiko Akiyoshi was born in Manchuria, China, and was considering a career in medicine when her family returned to live in Japan. "Japan was still heavily occupied then, and our resort city of Beppu was flooded with soldiers. One day I happened to pass one of the many dance halls…