Yoko Noge (born 1957) is a Japanese-born jazz and blues singer, pianist, and composer.
A native of Osaka, Noge took piano lessons for a brief period in childhood; growing up in Osaka in the 1960s and 1970s led to heavy exposure to the blues. As a teenager, she and several fellow students from her high school formed the Yoko Blues Band, which earned first prize, and a recording contract, in a television contest. [1]
Attracted by the blues scene in the city, [2] Noge moved to Chicago in 1984 to pursue a career in jazz and blues; beginning as a singer, she took piano lessons from Erwin Helfer and in the early 1990s established the Jazz Me Blues Band, which has since become a fixture on the Chicago musical scene. She has written a number of compositions for her group which blend ideas from Japanese folk music with Chicago blues. Noge cofounded the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival in 1995 with Tatsu Aoki and Francis Wong. In 2006 the Chicago Tribune named her "Chicagoan of the Year", and in 2009 Newsweek Japan identified her as "one of the most respected Japanese people in the world". [1] She received the Foreign Minister's Commendation from the Japanese government in 2014. [3] Noge is married to saxophonist Clark Dean. [1]
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.
William James "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, his minimalist piano style, and others.
Dinah Washington was an American singer and pianist, one of the most popular black female recording artists of the 1950s. Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of "Queen of the Blues". She was also known as "Queen of the Jukeboxes". She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
Yoko Shimomura is a Japanese composer and pianist primarily known for her work in video games such as the Kingdom Hearts series. She graduated from the Osaka College of Music in 1988 and began working in the video game industry by joining Capcom the same year. She wrote music for several games there, including Final Fight, Street Fighter II, and The King of Dragons.
Lillian Hardin Armstrong was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, singer, and bandleader. She was the second wife of Louis Armstrong, with whom she collaborated on many recordings in the 1920s.
Marcia Ball is an American blues singer and pianist raised in Vinton, Louisiana.
Helen Humes was an American singer. She was a blues, R&B and classic popular singer.
Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. She is one of the most successful female jazz singers and has been described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating blues, country, and folk music into her work. She has won numerous awards, including two Grammys, and was named "America's Best Singer" by Time magazine in 2001.
Yuka Honda is a Japanese-American musician who resides in New York City. She is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and co-founder of the band Cibo Matto. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with a diverse array of musicians, including Petra Haden, Sean Lennon, Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Tricky, Harper Simon, Beastie Boys, Los Lobos, Brooklyn Funk Essentials, Mitchell Froom, Medeski Martin & Wood, Marc Ribot, Yoshimi P-We, Arto Lindsay, Edie Brickell, Vincent Gallo, Luscious Jackson, Dave Douglas, Bernie Worrell, and Caetano Veloso.
Sippie Wallace was an American blues singer, pianist and songwriter. Her early career in tent shows gained her the billing "The Texas Nightingale". Between 1923 and 1927, she recorded over 40 songs for Okeh Records, many written by her or her brothers, George and Hersal Thomas. Her accompanists included Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams. Among the top female blues vocalists of her era, Wallace ranked with Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, and Bessie Smith.
Regina Carter is an American jazz violinist. She is the cousin of jazz saxophonist James Carter.
Japanese jazz, also called Japazz, is jazz played by Japanese musicians or jazz connected to Japan or Japanese culture. According to some estimates, Japan has the largest proportion of jazz fans in the world.
Eden Atwood is an American jazz singer and actress. She is the daughter of composer Hubbard Atwood and the granddaughter of the novelist A. B. Guthrie Jr.
Muriel Anderson is an American fingerstyle guitarist and harp guitarist who plays in many genres. She is the first woman to win the National Fingerpicking Guitar Championship.
Amina Claudine Myers is an American jazz pianist, organist, vocalist, composer, and arranger.
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Saskia Laroo, is a Dutch jazz musician who has been dubbed the "Lady Miles Davis". Her music style can be described as a combination of jazz, pop, electronic dance music, Latin and world music.
Ida Goodson was an American classic female blues and jazz singer and pianist.
Women in jazz have contributed throughout the many eras of jazz history, both as performers and as composers, songwriters and bandleaders. While women such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald were famous for their jazz singing, women have achieved much less recognition for their contributions as composers, bandleaders and instrumental performers. Other notable jazz women include piano player Lil Hardin Armstrong and jazz songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields.
Women in music perform a variety of roles and make a wide range of contributions. Women shape music movements, events, and genres as composers, songwriters, instrumental performers, singers, conductors, and music educators. Women's music has been created by and for women in part to explore ideas of women's rights and feminism. The impact of women in music influences concepts of creativity, activism, and culture.