Smooth jazz keyboardist Keiko Matsui celebrates a birthday today [July 26.]  Matsui received her first piano lessons at age five, following a Japanese tradition claiming that a child introduced to music at this time will study for years to come.  Considered a prodigy, Matsui augmented her classical training with an interest in jazz; at 17, she was recording with a local fusion group.

She met husband, Kazu, on a trip to the U.S.; they used money set aside for their honeymoon to record her first solo project, A Drop of Water.  Since then, she has regularly been named Top Female Contemporary Jazz Artist on several prestigious music lists.

Matsui is credited with discovering saxophonist Paul Taylor, who played on three of her albums.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 7:25 am and is filed under Smooth Jazz, Smooth Jazz News, Smooth News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.