Biography
Satoko was born in Sapporo, Japan, began learning classical piano at age of five. Her encounter with jazz occurred when she entered Gakushuin University. Soon she started singing as a member of Waseda University Modern Jazz Club.
In the early stage of her learning, she was influenced by Scandinavian jazz resulting in her visiting in Denmark and Sweden in 1998, where she met Jeanette Lindström(vo), Lina Nyberg(vo), Lars Jansson(p), Anders Persson(p), Yasuhito Mori(b) or Jacob Karlzon(p). As a result of this fully inspiring encounter, she began composing and writing lyrics.
Between 2002-2013, her activity was based in Osaka, where she nurtured her talent by giving regular performing at multiple clubs playing with best players such as Phillip Strange(p), Akira Shiomoto(g), Takeshi Shimizu(p), or Tsutomu Takei(ts).
Satoko’s Osaka period also brought her unexpected favorable result. Osaka, Kobe listeners known as the biggest market for female jazz singers gave her good challenge to develop her repertoire. Now her unique and varied repertoire includes standard songs by Richard Rodgers, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy Van Heusen, or Billy Strayhorn, contemporary instrumental tunes by Thelonious Monk, Fred Hersch, Steve Swallow or Wayne Shorter as well as her own compositions sang either in Japanese, English or vocalese.
In 2013, she earned NHK(Japan Broadcasting Corporation) Kobe Broadcasting Station Award for the annual Kobe Jazz Vocal Queen Contest. In August, she released her first CD “All The Pretty Little Horses”, which was nominated by Jazz Page for the Best Vocal Album 2013 as well as “satoko” for the Best Jazz Vocal 2013.
In 2015 and 2016, she traveled Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Czech, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden to catch up with current European jazz scene.
There she had chances to meet her respecting singers such as Fay Claassen(vo),Norma Winstone(vo) receiving fruitful, powerful advices.
In 2015, her 2nd album “Oneness” has been released in Japan. In this fine duo album with Chieko Maki(p), she successfully describes Japanese culture and nature in jazz text. Also she shows remarkable talent in writing English lyrics taking advantage of her ongoing career as a translator.
“Oneness Duo” has developed in “Trio ONENESS” by having prominent Yasushi Yoneki(b), one of the most respected bass players in Japan. Then the band had a great opportunity to give a recording with a Dutch drummer, Sebastiaan Keptein who is currently based in Okinawa, Japan. This recording was made at the renowned Sapporo Geimori Studio where Ryuichi Sakamoto recorded his album “UTAU.” In addition, sound design was done by Nilento Studio, mainly led by great Swedish engineer Lars Nilsson.
This newest album “FROST CRACK” has been released in 2019 January and received powerful reviews from jazz magazines.
Current Activities
Video “Sarabande” – J.S. Bach Cello Suite No.6, in Japanese lyric (2018)
ーThis music video went through a cloud-founding campaign and twenty-eight supporters in total founded for this project. ー
Ambient Album “PATTERN NIGHT” – with Frozen Dust Duo (2018)
ーCollaboration with the electric guitar duo by Motohiko Ichino and Seino Takumi. ー
Attending Meredith Monk’s Voice As Practice (2019)
