Toshiko Akiyoshi

Toshiko Akiyoshi (秋吉 敏子 or 穐吉 敏子) is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. She has received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in Down Beat magazine's annual Readers' Poll.In 1984, she was the subject of the documentary Jazz Is My Native Language.In 1996, she published her autobiography, Life with Jazz, and in 2007 she was named an NEA Jazz Master by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.