Masahiko Satoh

Jazz pianist, composer, and arranger Masahiko Satoh was born on October 6, 1941, in Tokyo, Japan. In 1944, his family moved into a house that included a piano and, within two years, he had started playing it. By the time he was 17, he was playing the piano professionally by accompanying various types of cabaret performers. Masahiko Satoh graduated from Keio University. In 1959, he joined jazz drummer George Kawaguchi’s band and played alongside alto saxophonist Sadao Watanabe and tenor saxophonist Akira Miyazawa. When Masahiko Satoh turned 26, he moved to the US to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. During his two years there, he studied composing and arranging while also working in a shop and playing piano in a hotel lobby to earn extra money. He returned to Japan and released Palladium, his debut solo album, in 1969. Further solo albums include Holography (1970), Amorphism (1985), Lunar Cruise (1990), Masahiko Satoh Plays Masahiko Togashi (2003), and Spring Snow (2013). He’s also composed music for film, TV, and adverts. Since the beginning of his recording career, Masahiko Satoh has written/arranged for or performed with some of jazz’s greatest artists including Helen Merrill, Eddie Gómez, Peter Brötzmann, Paal Nilssen-Love, Steve Gadd, Jean-Luc Ponty, Nancy Wilson, and many others.

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