Yoshio Toyama is known as “Japanese Satchmo” because of his outstanding talent as a jazz musician. Yoyama plays every year at the New Orleans Satchmo Summer Festival which was created to recognize Louis Armstrong for his contributions to New Orleans and the jazz music genre. Japanese Satchmo’s wonderful world of jazz music began when he moved to New Orleans from Japan in 1968 and played the trumpet. His wife is also a musician, and the couple resided in New Orleans for five years.
Yoyama says that jazz and Louis Armstrong are very popular in Japan. Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans then took his music to Chicago, New York, Europe and all over the world. Yoyama has much respect for Armstrong because he never went to music school; his rhythm, feeling and blues were formed simply from living in New Orleans.
Each year, Yoyama brings 40 or 50 people with him to Satchmo Fest. And he always has an excellent band backing him up. If you would like to see Yoshio Toyama perform at Satchmo Fest, visit http://fqfi.org/satchmo
