Taeko Fukao
Taeko Fukao (深尾 多恵子 Fukao Taeko?) is a Japanese jazz singer from Shiga Prefecture, Japan.[1] Fukao is based in New York City, but travels extensively throughout the US and Japan performing in jazz festivals and jazz club venues.[2] In between national and local appearances she has recorded two albums for Flat Nine Records.[3]
Career
Fukao started her professional singing career as an R&B singer while studying law at Doshisha University in Kyoto. Her interest in black music such as soul and jazz brought her to New York City in 1998. After six months of study in the US, Fukao returned to Japan where she continued to pursue her music career. She won a grand prize at the 1999 Satin Dall Jazz Competition in Kobe, Japan. Although she found the Japanese jazz scene interesting, Fukao knew that in order to fully understand jazz, she would have to return to New York City.[4]
Fukao returned to New York City in 2000, and started to work in small venues such as Carpo's Cafe, San Marco, New Tokyo in Downtown Manhattan. In mid-2003, she became a featured artist at Mobay Uptown in Harlem,[2] which continues to this day. Fukao made her first appearance at the Blue Note Jazz Club, located in New York, in late 2003.
After a few years of regular jazz club appearances between the US and Japan such as Zinc Bar, Lenox Lounge, Saint Nick's Pub in New York, J in Tokyo, and Mister Kelly's in Osaka, Fukao has released her first album with Flat Nine Records[5] in New York in late 2007, titled One Love. In the same year, Fukao won a finalist position at the Jazz Vocal Competition presented by Jazzmobile, Inc.[6] held in New York City. Taeko has first appeared at; the Women in Jazz Festival in New York in 2009 along with Annie Ross and Cynthia Scott, presented by the International Women in Jazz, Inc.; the Hartford Jazz Society's Monday Night Jazz Concert Series at the Bushnell Park in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009; the Biwako Jazz Festival in Shiga, Japan in 2010; the Okazaki Jazz Street in Aichi, Japan in 2010; and the Cape May Jazz Festival in New Jersey, USA in November 2010. Fukao sang the National Anthem at Japan Run in Central Park 2011.[7] Fukao was a featured artist at the 5th annual Japan Day at Central Park in New York City 2011.[8]
Fukao recorded her second album with Flat Nine Records in 2010, titled Voice.[9] She recorded compositions by various American and Japanese artists such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Duke Ellington, Sly and the Family Stone, Marvin Gaye, Ryoichi Hattori, and Taro Oguchi, among whom is Doug Carn, a Florida-based American jazz pianist who is best known for a series of his recordings for Black Jazz Records in the 1970s. Fukao was hired for Doug Carn's group in early 2011 and is touring the U.S.
Discography
- Taeko (1999), self release
- Stories Of Life (2002), self release
- You Taught My Heart To Sing (2004), self release[10]
- One Love (2007), released by Flat Nine Records (USA)[11]
- Voice (2010), released by Flat Nine Records (USA)[3]
References
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