JALC Radio - Keeping the Tenor Flame

Music has the power to cross borders and transcend languages. And sometimes, it has the power to change lives…consider how profoundly a record by pianist Teddy Wilson inspired a Japanese teenager living in China in 1946. That teenager – Toshiko Akiyoshi -- is now an 82-year-old bebop master. She is a powerful pianist and resourceful composer, one who also pulled off a rare feat -- she and her husband Lew Tabackin co-founded a successful big band during the 1970s, at a time when the music industry had given up on the sound.