Yōsuke Yamashita (山下 洋輔, Yamashita Yōsuke, born 26 February 1942) is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer and writer. His piano style is influenced by free jazz, modal jazz and soul jazz. Since the late 1980s, Yamashita's main performing group has consisted of Cecil McBee (bass), Pheeroan akLaff (drums), and often Joe Lovano (saxophone). Yamashita was born in Tokyo, Japan, on 26 February 1942. He had violin lessons between the ages of nine and 15, and switched to piano in his teens. Yamashita first played piano professionally in 1959, at the age of 17, and attended the Kunitachi College of Music and studied classical composition from 1962 to 1967. In the early 1960s, he "was part of a group, with Terumasa Hino and Masabumi Kikuchi, that met at a jazz club called Ginparis (銀巴里) to play and discuss jazz every night". Yamashita's first released recording was in 1963, and he became a pioneer of avant-garde and free jazz. He was part of Masahiko Togashi's free jazz quartet in 1965, but it disbanded after three months without recording. The pair were part of Sadao Watanabe's band in 1966, but Yamashita and Togashi disagreed about rhythms, leading to the pianist leaving. He formed his own trio in August 1966, with bassist Satoshi Shigami and drummer Shigenori Honjo; around ten months later, they were replaced by Motoharu Yoshizawa and Yoshisaburo Toyozumi, respecitvely. Saxophonist Seiichi Nakamura was added a short time later. The quartet recorded for the film Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands in 1967. Near the end of that year, Yamashita developed pleurisy, which meant that he was not musically active for almost a year. More information...
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