I went to see a Q/A with A.B. Spellman, which I gather is an annual affair where he gets to interview someone in front of an audience. The format is somewhat similar to a TV talk show. This time his interlocutor was Toshiko Akiyoshi, who is apparently a preeminent Jazz pianist and composer.

With no interest in Jazz, I enjoyed the session in my humble weaboo ways, primarily for the reference value. During the occupation, Mrs. Akiyoshi had to build her repertoire by listening to records, which were ludicrously expensive at 3,000 en each. At the time they had some of them playing as restaurant music, so she visited coffee shops and did her best to jot down the score, like an ancient Josh Agarrado. She also mentioned the Live House system, which, as we know from K-ON, exists to this day.

There was quite a bit more, such as a discussion of the luck and timing, which of course Nodame covered. One particularly funny thing was how A.B. attempted to talk what it was to be a 17-year old girl playing Jazz in postwar Japan (watched too much Basball Girls in Age of Toushou perhaps). Toshiko pushed back hard. She said there was such a lack of musicians that nobody cared if you were a girl or what you were, just as long you could play, and that nobody ever made anything out of it. Oh, my.

Finally, a dude in the audience tried to broach a subject of get Akiyoshi Big Band recordings released on iTunes. I knew what the answer would be since the problem is common in anime circles. I heard it discussed at Yoko Ishida's panel once, for example. Basically, it's a hell on a stick to get rights from the Japanese or even know who has the rights. In Mrs. Akiyoshi's case RCA/Victor owns most of it, so only the first applies, but even so nobody succeeded so far.