Mamiko Watanabe

Japanese jazz pianist Mamiko Watanabe plays in a style deeply influenced by tradition, but also with a distinctive individualism that has seen her compared to McCoy Tyner. Born in Fukuoka, Watanabe began to study piano at the age of four at the Yamaha School of Music, and at seven, wrote her first short composition. One of her major inspirations was the famous Japanese-American female bandleader Toshiko Akiyoshi. In 1999 she won a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where she studied jazz piano, improvisation, and composition, receiving se...